In an interview with Fast Company, Hiroshi Lockheiner has confirmed that Google will be releasing Android M this year.

He also revealed in the interview that Google has switched to a yearly release update cycle for “big releases” of Android.

“As we’ve grown as a platform, we realize that to some extent predictability is important for the whole industry: developers, manufacturers, operators, and consumers, frankly,” Lockheimer explains. “So we’ve landed with sort of a yearly cadence of big releases, so, for instance, one year we release J, the next year we release K, and then the year after that L, and then this year we’ll launch M, and so you can predict what will happen next year.”

An yearly major update cycle does not mean we will only see one Android update in the whole year though. Google will follow up with minor bug-fixing updates as and when needed and it deems necessary.

We have already seen Google roll out Android 5.1 this year, and later this year, it will be releasing Android M that will reportedly focus on battery life improvements and reduction in RAM usage.