I wanted to share an interesting statistic with you. Approximately 1 out of every 25 people with a Google Pixel phone is running GrapheneOS right now. While it's difficult to get an exact number, we can make educated guesses to get an approximate number.

How many GrapheneOS users are there? According to an estimate released by GrapheneOS today, the number of GrapheneOS devices is approaching 400,000. This estimate is based on the number of devices that downloaded recent GrapheneOS updates. Some users may have multiple devices, such as organizations, and some users may download and flash updates externally, but it's the best estimate we have.

How many Google Pixel users are there? Despite Google's extensive data collection, this one is surprisingly harder to estimate, since Google hasn't released an exact number. There's a number floating around that Google has 4-5% of the smartphone market, which is between 10 million and 13.2 million users in the United States. I can't find the source of where this information came from. That number is problematic, too, because Japan supposedly uses more Google Pixel phones than the United States. The Pixel 9 series was also a big jump in market share for Google. I couldn't find any numbers smaller than 10 million, and it made the math nice, so that is what I went with.

Putting the numbers together, it means that 4% of Google Pixel users are running GrapheneOS. That means in a room of 25 Google Pixel users, 1 of them will be a GrapheneOS user. If you include all custom Android operating systems, that number would certainly be much, much higher.

To put it into perspective, each pixel in this image represents ~5 Google Pixel users. Each white pixel represents that those ~5 people use GrapheneOS:

Even with generous estimates to Google's market share, GrapheneOS still makes up a large portion of their users.

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[–] 138 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That image is a horrible way to represent any ratio. I love it!

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I actually do like it. I don't see it as trying to show an actually accurate ratio, or for you to be able to make an informed decisions from it. I read it as a vibe check, just a quick "what would a room fu LLM of pixel users" look like.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    I'm not sure if that'd be what it'd look like.. distributions are hardly ever that heterogeneous.

    I'd bet all the GrapheneOS users would get together in their own corner and nerd out about their customizations.

    For the record: 1 in 25 is 4% ...the image gives (intentionally?) the illusion of the proportion being higher.

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  • [–] 122 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    Hello fellow criminals, anyone get up to any good crime lately?

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    [–] 63 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Graphene explicitly says the 400k are worldwide. You cannot then go ahead and use the US numbers for your comparison. From your own source, Google shipped 10 million Pixel 9 devices in 2023 alone. This does not account for other/older pixel models, or the sum total of sales before that point, or since.

    Why not just share the actual number: worldwide, there's 400k users.

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    [–] 58 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Google sold 40 million Pixels between 2016 and 2023, and that number has grown rapidly in the last few years. I think an estimate of around 40 million active Pixel phones is reasonable, which would give GrapheneOS a relative market share of 1%; certainly less than 2%.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    I'm certain that most people between 2016 and 2023 bought multiple devices to upgrade old ones.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago

    I'm on, I think, my 3rd Pixel. All of them were chosen because of the possibility of putting a third-party firmware on them, but my current one is the first I've actually done it to.

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  • [–] 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Considering that if you use a custom ROM, you're a pro user, the 1% of the users, this means only one of this two cases:

    1. The Google Pixel line is a complete failure and failed to reach mainstream status, nobody knows the brand and buys the phones in a store, they're moving 1000x less units than Apple

    2. There's some error in your numbers

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  • [–] 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)
    1. The Pixel is easily unlockable, so one can install custom firmware without being a "pro", its hardware is (or was reverse-engineered to be) compatible enough to make the experience seamless, with a whole firmware project / community that it's exclusively dedicated on that specific range of hardware devices, making it a target for anyone looking for a phone where to install custom Android firmware on.

    But I'd bet it's a mix of 2 and 3.

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    [–] 33 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    I never would have guessed anywhere near 400k, that's wild!

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    I’m surprised it isn’t more.

    Pixels are the reference platform for a lot of open-source phone operating systems. A disproportionate number of people who purchased Pixels are the type of person who did believe Googles motto of “Don’t be Evil”, even after Google abandoned the motto.

    Now that Google is inarguably Evil (not Musk Evil, but definitely more Evil than Apple), these people are searching for solutions. They are gun-shy and are not likely to get an Evil iPhone, have a large investment in the Android ecosystem so are unlikely to pivot to Linux Phone, and the niche Android variants are more likely to be assassinated by Google.

    GrapheneOS is the obvious choice. I’m surprised it isn’t a higher percentage.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    I mean, I still buy (used) Pixels even after knowing Google is evil, because they're still the least-bad option because of things like Graphene OS.


    Also, re: "unlikely to pivot to Linux phones:" that's not because of any sort of "large investment in Android;" it's because Linux phones either suck or are expensive (or maybe both). I say that as a desktop Linux user exclusively for almost a decade and owner of a Pinephone. I want to be using a Linux phone, but they just aren't there yet.

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  • [–] 23 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    You are comparing worldwide numbers to US-only numbers.

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    [–] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    One one hand, a superior ROM choice

    On the other hand, subpar crappy Google hardware

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    [+] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)
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    [–] 10 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    1 in 25 is a very odd way to say 4%...

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    c/dataisbeautiful :P

    I had no idea the share was so large.

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  • [+] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago

    Yeah 4% is big enough to get on Google's radar as a threat. Especially if it's trending upwards.

    This is more than just a few tinfoil hats now.

    And yes they're working on locking bootloaders and also making AOSP less useful

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    Is there a theydidthemath lemmy community lol I'd like to be one of those reddit posters who link communities because funny lol

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (18 children)

    Hi, Google Pixel user here, wtf is GrapheneOS? And why should I get it?

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago

    essentially grapheneOs is just plain android, with additional security features/ hardening. It is said to be the most secure (normal) Os in the world.

    And one of the nicest feature in my opinion is, that all the google stuff is optional. So play store and play service is just another app. (Instead of a system level privileged process)

    And in my opinion, it is just the better operating system.

    https://grapheneos.org/features

    I think you, the question should be "why should i not get it" and the answer to this is if, you either need NFC payment (does not work (depending on bank)), or you dont want an app to ever not work, because some apps dont work on it (google play integrety check is the reason)

    And it should be mentioned, that grapheneOs has one of the best web installer out there, it is easier to install then any linux distro. It was a dream really.

    (and for switching the data transfer might be annoying)

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 9 months ago

    GrapheneOS is a privacy and security focused operating system for your phone, based on Android. It provides much more security than stock Android. If you want a more private or secure device, then GrapheneOS is the go-to recommendation for Pixel devices.

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    [+] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Makes sense. Pixel is the successor to Nexus, which was always meant for tinkerers. The Pixel is (was?) sold unlocked, too. Unless you bought it from a carrier.

    Pixel is also underpowered compared to iPhone and Galaxy, but priced similarly. So either you buy it because you just love Google that much... or you want to do something else with it.

    Wondering if Graphene OS supports the AI hallucination camera mode on the Pixel 10 Pro where you zoom it at "100X" and it makes up details. Don't get me wrong here — as an iPhone/Galaxy user (I main the iPhone but I do use both, and have also used HTC and Motorola) I think the feature is awesome... unless you're trying to capture text. In which case it won't work. Well, it'll try to work. It won't work well. And I don't suppose you could show it the text later and update the 100X photo, but if you had that opportunity, you would just take a better picture up close.

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