What is a staged rollout on Google Play?

Google offers staged rollouts on production and on the testing tracks, for app updates only: the first release of an app can’t be staged. You pick a percentage of users, and Google chooses who gets the update at random, without telling them. If the release is limited to some countries, only users in those countries are included.

The percentage never rises on its own. To widen it, open the release in Play Console and choose Manage rollout → Update rollout. If something is wrong, Halt rollout stops new users from getting the version, while those who already have it keep it; Resume rollout continues with the same users. Google suggests watching crash reports and user feedback during the rollout, since users in it can leave public reviews.

The App Store’s version of the idea is phased release, which follows Apple’s fixed 7-day schedule instead of a percentage you set.

In VibeView. In the Submit dialog, choose Staged rollout under Release (on every track except Internal testing) and enter a Rollout percentage from 1 to 99. From the command line, pass --release-status inProgress --rollout 0.1 for 10%. A staged rollout is chosen for each release and never saved for next time. After the upload, VibeView doesn’t change the release: the submission card lists the steps to raise, halt or resume it in Play Console. See After the upload: Google Play.