Upgrade timing often varies wildly from one country or carrier to the next, so in order to create a consistent standard for scoring, I’ve focused this analysis on when Android 16 first reached a flagship model that’s readily available in the US — either a carrier-connected model or an unlocked version of the phone, if such a product is sold by the manufacturer and readily available to US customers — in a public, official, and not opt-in-beta-oriented over-the-air rollout.
(To be clear, I’m not counting being able to import an international version of a phone from eBay or from some random seller on Amazon as being “readily available to US customers.” For the purposes of creating a reasonable and consistent standard for this analysis, a phone has to be sold in the US in some official capacity in order to be considered a “US model” of a device.)
By looking at the time to Android 16’s first appearance (via an over-the-air rollout) on a device in the US, we’re measuring how quickly a typical US device-owner could realistically get the software in a normal situation. And since we’re looking at the first appearance, in any unlocked or carrier-connected phone, we’re eliminating any carrier-specific delays from the equation and focusing purely on the soonest possible window you could receive an update from any given manufacturer in this country. We’re also eliminating the PR-focused silliness of a manufacturer rushing to roll out a small-scale upgrade in somewhere like Lithuania just so they can put out a press release touting that they were “FIRST,” when the practical implication of such a rollout is basically just a rounding error.
I chose to focus on the US specifically because that’s where this publication (and this person writing this right now — hi!) is based, but this same analysis could be done using any country as its basis, of course, and the results would vary accordingly.
All measurements start from the day Android 16 was released into the Android Open Source Project: June 10, 2025, which is when the final raw OS code officially became available to manufacturers.
The following scale determined each manufacturer’s subscores for upgrade timeliness:
- 1-14 days to first US rollout = A+ (100)
- 15-30 days to first US rollout = A (96)
- 31-45 days to first US rollout = A– (92)
- 46-60 days to first US rollout = B+ (89)
- 61-75 days to first US rollout = B (86)
- 76-90 days to first US rollout = B– (82)
- 91-105 days to first US rollout = C+ (79)
- 106-120 days to first US rollout = C (76)
- 121-135 days to first US rollout = C– (72)
- 136-150 days to first US rollout = D+ (69)
- 151-165 days to first US rollout = D (66)
- 166-180 days to first US rollout = D– (62)
- More than 180 days to first US rollout (and thus no upgrade activity within the six-month window) = F (0)
There’s just one asterisk: If a manufacturer outright abandons any US-relevant models of a device, its score defaults to zero for that specific category. Within that category (be it current or previous-gen flagship), such behavior is an indication that the manufacturer in question could not be trusted to honor its commitment and provide an upgrade. This adjustment allows the score to better reflect that reality. No such adjustments were made this year, though there have been instances where it’s happened in the past (hello, Moto — again!).
Last but not least, this analysis focuses on manufacturers selling flagship phones that are relevant and in some way significant to the US market and/or the Android enthusiast community. That, as I alluded to above, is why a company like Sony is no longer part of the primary analysis — and why companies like Xiaomi and Huawei are not presently part of this picture, despite their relevance in other parts of the world. Considering the performance of players in a market such as China would certainly be interesting, but it’d be a completely different and totally separate analysis, and it’s beyond the scope of what we’re considering in this one report.
Aside from the companies included here, most players are either still relatively insignificant in the US market or have focused their efforts more on the budget realm in the States so far — and thus don’t make sense, at least as of now, to include in this specific-sample-oriented and flagship-focused breakdown.
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