Unicode 8.0 introduced 41 new emoji in 2015.
Unicode 8.0 was released in June 2015 and added a relatively small group of emoji compared with some later releases. The additions included faces, animals, food, sports and other symbols, expanding the visual vocabulary available to users across supported systems.
The number 41 describes the new emoji associated with that release, not every emoji available on a phone in 2015. Platforms often implemented Unicode updates at different times, and vendors could also alter the artwork while retaining the same underlying characters.
Unicode 8.0 is easy to confuse with Unicode 9.0, released in 2016. Unicode 9.0 added a much larger set, including popular characters such as Face With Cowboy Hat and Selfie. Counting conventions can also differ when later discussions include sequences or skin-tone variants rather than only newly encoded characters.