Google managed to reduce the amount of malware found on Android by almost half last year, according to Digital Spy.

The company has released a new Android State of the Union report, in a bid to show it is cracking down on malware and its mobile operating system is becoming safer.

According to the 44-page report, harmful applications were only installed on 1% of Android devices in 2014.

It claims that devices with applications only installed from the Google Play store were even less, at 0.15%.

However, the company admitted that even some harmful apps can slip through the net onto its own ecosystem.

"Google Play reviews all applications for potential security issues prior to making them available to users," it said.

"No review process is perfect, and with over 1 million applications in Google Play, there are a small number of Potentially Harmful Applications that do still manage to be published in Google Play."

Elsewhere, Google said that Android and Android partners also responded to 79 externally reported security issues.