What devices are Android Authority readers using? (2022 Edition)

We’re big Android fans here at Android Authority, as you might expect. But have you ever thought about the phones your fellow readers use? Well, we dug into our anonymous user figures to present a breakdown of Android Authority readers and the devices they — well, you — use.

This is our fourth time looking at this data, having previously posted similar articles in 2021, 2019, and 2017. The data in our latest breakdown is based on site visitor stats from October to November 2022.

Related: What phones do the Android Authority team use as daily drivers? (2022 edition)

Before we delve into devices proper, let’s take a look at where you’re from. There’s a good chance you’re in the US, India, or the UK, accounting for 37.34%, 11.81%, and 8.11% of our readers respectively. Rounding out the top five was Canada (5.18%) and Australia (3.22%). The Philippines, Malaysia, Germany, Singapore, and the Netherlands make up the rest of the top 10.

As for the actual devices, browsers, and Android versions? We’ve got you covered.

What’s your favorite smartphone brand?

Before we dive into details regarding specific models, let’s take a look at the top smartphone brands among our readers. Is it any surprise to see that Samsung is number one? The Korean manufacturer accounted for 31.4% of devices, which is actually a decline compared to last year’s 33.6%.

Meanwhile, Apple took the runner-up spot with 26.6% of all Android Authority readers using an Apple device. That’s a pretty significant chunk of our visitors and represents a notable increase over 2021 (20%).

Google took third place, as the Pixel maker accounted for 9% of all readers during October-November 2022. That’s a seriously sharp increase over 2021, when it only accounted for 4.8% of readers. In fact, this is the highest figure we’ve seen for Google phones since we started this series, edging out 2017’s 8.7%.

Google’s rise knocked Xiaomi down one spot to fourth place, accounting for 7.8% of Android Authority readers. This isn’t a huge drop from 2021, when Xiaomi devices represented 8.4% of the audience.

Otherwise, OnePlus maintained its fifth place spot with 4.15% of readers using a OnePlus device. That’s a small drop over last year, when it was sitting at 5.3%

Drilling down to specific phone models, there’s a ton of variety here that would make a graph look incredibly busy. But there are a few standout devices in the top 25 rankings nonetheless.

Apple’s iPhone series accounted for a massive 24.11% of Android Authority readers. We aren’t able to look at these figures by specific generations of iPhone though (e.g. iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 11, etc), which is a real shame. Apple’s iPad family also accounted for 1.63% of readers, although we don’t get a breakdown of specific iPad models here either.

Moving on to Android devices, Google Pixel phones accounted for five models in the top ten. The Google Pixel 6 Pro (1.86%) and Pixel 6 (1.76%) were the most popular individual phone models and Android phone models on the list. But we also saw the Pixel 5, Pixel 7 Pro, and Pixel 6a making the top 10. Otherwise, the Pixel 4a and Pixel 7 made the top 25.

Samsung also had a couple of devices in the top 10 and a ton of handsets in the top 25. The Galaxy S22 Ultra and S21 Ultra appeared in the top 10, while the Galaxy S21, S22, A52s, S20 FE, S10, S10 Plus, and Note 20 Ultra appeared in the top 25.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro was the only Chinese phone in the top 25, albeit in 25th place (or 26th if we include the “not set” category for devices that don’t list a model name). This was also the only Chinese phone in our top 25 last year.

You’re not quite running the latest Android version

The most popular Android release by far was Android 12, as 44.7% of Android Authority readers were running this version. Meanwhile, only 15.75% of our readers are running the latest and greatest Android 13. This perhaps reflects the relatively glacial pace of Android update releases in 2022, despite the likes of Google and Samsung stepping things up.

Android 11 understandably took third place, while Android 10 was the only other version on more than 10% of devices. We hope Android Authority readers still using Android 7.1 or older either upgrade their devices or, uh, unofficially update them to a more recent software version.

Related: Phone update policies from every major company

For what it’s worth, 29.8% of our readers were running the latest version of Android last year, suggesting a downward slide in 2022. But the slide can be attributed to the timing of this latest data gathering, coming roughly three months after Android 13’s release. Meanwhile, our 2021 data was extracted around seven months after Android 12’s release.

Still, there’s cause for optimism as, in 2017, only 13.5% of our readers were running the latest version of Android (Nougat) roughly five months after its release. So we’ve already surpassed this figure in less time with Android 13. After so many years and with many manufacturers pushing for faster updates, such an improvement was expected.

Other stats worth knowing

So what web browsers are Android Authority visitors using? It won’t be a surprise to hear that 66% are surfing the interwebs on Google Chrome. But this actually represents a drop from 2021, when Chrome stood at 70% of all visitors.

Apple’s Safari came in second place, albeit only accounting for ~18% of visitors. In saying so, this is actually a solid leap up from 2021’s 14.5%.

Microsoft Edge and Samsung Internet have also traded places this time, with Edge accounting for 2.96% of all web browsers visiting our site (up from 2% last year). Samsung’s browser, on the other hand, sits at 2.49% (down from 3.5%).

Breaking things down by operating system, 55.25% of you are running Android. This makes for a slight drop compared to last year, when 58.7% of our visitors were using Google’s mobile platform. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, saw a major boost; it now accounts for 20.37% of all visitors compared to 14.6% in 2021.

Desktop platforms might not be as popular for browsing our website, but Windows was still far and away the desktop OS of choice. In saying so, Mac OS is slowly growing, handily beating Chrome OS and Linux.

Oddly enough, 0.02% of readers are visiting Android Authority via BlackBerry or Tizen devices. We even got four visits via the Nintendo Wii U and two visits via the Nintendo 3DS. Nice.

Are these stats in line with your location and device? Let us know where you’re from and what you’re using to visit Android Authority below!