Why is Chrome version 29 disproportionately popular?

Question

CanIUse's browser stats table shows Chrome version 29 having 0.68% of the browser market, far more than for every other version of a similar age. Versions 28 and 30 for example both have 0.03%, making version 29 almost 23x more popular. On their stats it's actually more popular than every other version of Chrome up to 48 (January's release), despite now being almost 3 years old.

For comparison, 0.68% usage means this outdated Chrome release is more popular than the current and previous versions of Opera, the penultimate version of Safari on iOS, and IE 9 or 10.

A quick look at other sources like Clicky (which includes only version stats for recent Chrome, and Chrome v29), and W3Counter (which actually puts it up at 2%) seems to suggest this isn't just a local discrepancy.

I can't seem to find anything special about it though, either from the Google release notes or in Wikipedia's release details.

Where is this coming from? Why are so many more people using this specific version of Chrome? What on earth is going on?

Answer 1

Looks like Chrome 29 was the first version of Chrome on Android. I suppose there are still a lot of phones out there that haven't upgraded.

Answer 2

On Apple iPad it was the last version supported on the original iPad, i.e. iOS 5.1.1.

I only stumbled across then when debugging some software running on a fleet of original iPads. Some corporates are loathe to throw out tablets that still work fine.