Google's Android Go OS is now available on 250 million devices

Google’s Android Go operating system for budget smartphones has surpassed 250 million monthly active users, up from 200 million users in December 2021. This means over 50 million Android Go smartphones were shipped this year. 

“There are now over 250 million monthly active devices powered by Android Go,” Charmaine D'Silva, director, of Product Management, Android at Google, said in a blog post. 

D’Silva also announced the Go edition of Android 13, which will bring Google Play System Updates to smartphones running Android Go. 

D’Silva pointed out that this would ensure regular important software updates outside of the major Android OS update, on Go devices. Devices with Android 13 (Go edition) will launch next year, she added. 

Released first on December 2017 with Android 8.1, the Go edition was designed to offer an optimised Android experience on budget smartphones with 512MB to 1GB RAM. Google also built lighter versions of many of its apps that would use less RAM and processing power and run smoothly on Android Go devices. Google also built a lighter version of Play Store, which would recommend apps that were optimised for Android Go. 

In India, Android Go-based smartphones are offered by several OEMs including Xiaomi, Infinix, Vivo, Tecno, and Realme. Reliance Jio's budget smartphone Jio Phone Next also uses a custom version of Android GO, which was named PragatiOS by the telco. It offers several Indian language-centric features. 

Though the average selling price (ASP) of smartphones has been rising (₹18,000) in India, budget smartphones still account for a large number of shipments. According to Counterpoint Research, the market share of under 10,000 smartphones in India in 2022 is 27%, down from 35% last year. Analysts at Counterpoint attributed this to the macroeconomic situation, lack of innovation, and slow upgrade from feature phones to smartphones.