Just how old are the most popular Windows Phone models?

Last month there was some concern (example) about how the most popular Windows Phone model in use was three years old and that this was bad for the platform, even amongst the Windows Phone faithful. There was a response that showed how the most popular devices are of a similar age on Android and iOS too.

This got me wondering about the age of other devices too.

So I made this graph based on the February stats.

Taking the 40 most popular devices I plotted their age (based on the release date from gsmarena) against their popularity.

What does it show?
Not a lot actually. There is no big link between age and popularity.
It turns out that there is a very small trend indicating a decrease in popularity over time. But this is probably to be expected as people replace older devices and/or they stop working.
It does surprise me that there are so many older devices still in use and in enough numbers to make this chart. (While this only includes the top 40, the data identifies over 200 different models in use.)
The big takeaway, for me, from this charting exercise is a reminder of the importance of testing on older devices. Even very old ones are still in use.