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Each year, Samsung, LG, Google and other brands such as Huawei, introduce new Android phones. These past few years we have seen a faster release with new models of mobile devices and some new major players in the Android market such as Xiaomi and Huawei. As we start the year, we want to share with you some of the top Android devices that you should consider supporting if you are releasing an Android application in 2020.
Android versions and the device fragmentation
According to Google, at the end of 2019 an estimated 2.5 billion Android phones are in use and a total of 1.4 billion phones have been sold in the past 5 years (Statista). Currently Android is supported on devices such as Google Pixel, Motorola, OnePlus, Sony, Samsung, Nokia and Xiaomi just to name a few. However, one thing has not changed over the years—fragmentation. Meaning, Android users globally vary not only in the types of device manufacturers, but also across a wide variety of Android versions. Although Android has not released any official statistics since May 2019, people across the world are estimated to run 13 different versions of Android across hundreds of Android phones.
Understanding your target audience, defining your list of Android devices
Before you develop and test a new or existing Android application, it’s important to analyze your target audience and what region of the world these users will be using your app. If you build an Android app for the US market (although the majority of devices in the US are also available in Europe), there are a few differences with some of the most frequently used Android devices. Based on our experience, in 2019 the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S10 were extremely popular in the US; however, in a country such as France, the Galaxy A10 is one of, if not, the most popular device. Meanwhile, in the past few years new key players have emerged in the Android market and phones from Xiaomi, Redmi and especially Huawei are extremely popular in the US, Europe, China and the rest of the world. These mid-range devices with quality hardware and features have convinced a large number of users to switch to these new brands.
Top Android Devices for app testing in 2020
We gathered this data based on our knowledge of the hundreds of web and mobile apps we’ve tested in 2019 and also on information published on websites who collect analytics from millions of users year round. Unfortunately, Google has not released any information since May 2019 about the percentage of Android users on each OS version. Let’s dive into the specific list of phones.
Galaxy S9, S10 and S10+
While Samsung is expected to release a new Galaxy phone in 2020, Galaxy S9 and S10 are still some of the most popular devices worldwide. Even so, when it comes to mobile app testing it’s important to support older devices such as Galaxy S7 and S8. Considering the large number of users on Galaxy S devices across the world, it’s always safe to keep a large number of Samsung Galaxy devices in your test coverage.
Galaxy A10
You might not be very familiar with the Galaxy A10 but it’s known to be the best-selling Android phone during the third quarter of 2019 in Europe (Counterpointresearch). The Samsung Galaxy A series has been successful in 2019 and is expected to grow in 2020. Meanwhile right before the CES conference kicked off in Las Vegas, Samsung just announced a new Galaxy S10 Lite and S10 Note Lite at a mid range price around 600 euros.
Google Pixel 3 and 4
Since 2016 and the release of the Pixel phone, Google has released a few versions of the Pixel including the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. The Pixel phones are popular in the US and between October 2018 and September 2019 Google sold more than 12.8 million Pixel 3 devices.
Motorola Moto G7 and LG G7 ThinQ
Although Motorola and LG are 2 separate types of Android phones, they are both popular devices at a medium price range and also used globally. When you release an app to millions of users you do not necessarily want to test dozens of devices but covering different manufacturers, screen sizes and devices configuration will help you launch a great product.
Huawei P30, P40 and Mate 20
In 2019, Huawei P30 was praised by the majority of online reviews and the company is just behind Samsung as the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. If your Android app is launched globally or outside the US then you should have the Huawei P30 in your list of devices. In 2019, Huawei shipped 200 million smartphones. In 2020, Huawei is expected to launch the P40 phone even though some concerns remain around security and confidentiality around the Chinese manufacturer.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and 7 Pro
Just like Huawei, Xiaomi sold a record of number of 119 million phones in 2018. Xiaomi is in first position in India and just behind Samsung in some countries in Asia. Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and 7 Pro and Xiaomi Redmi 6A are in the top most selling devices globally in 2019 with a total of 30 millions devices sold globally.
Testing on Android 10
Android 10 was released in September 2019 on Pixel phones and over the following months Google pushed some beta versions until last month. Since Google has not released any official statistics since last May 2019 it’s difficult to get an idea of the number of users on Android 10 but considering it’s only since early January 2020 that a stable version is available on the new Galaxy note 10 Plus, we can expect it to be pretty low.
That said, just like any major OS beta version this is something you must account for when testing your next Android app version.
In this post we covered the top Android devices and upcoming devices but always keep in mind the importance of testing on older devices. If you are interested to look at our posts from the past couple of years visit our 2019 post and our 2018 one. All year round we test on 500+ devices in our Lab. If you ever need advice or recommendations on testing an Android app please reach out to us!