Nigeria’s largest social network, 2go, which previously had solely been feature phone-based, has launched its Android app on the Google Play Store.

The Africa-focused chat-based mobile social network has over 30 million registered users with more than 9 million active users in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, feature phones still dominate with around 88% market share, although Android is growing increasingly important.

“Android is the fastest growing mobile platform across Africa, and with sub $50 Android devices on the horizon, 2go’s mostly feature phone user base can now migrate with 2go as they move to smartphones”, says Alan Wolff, who founded 2go with Ashley Peter while still at university in Johannesburg in 2007.

According to Brad Taylor, MD of GfK South Africa, Android phones now represent 5.2% of current monthly phone sales in Nigeria, up from 3.4% in September 2012.

Taylor notes that this trend is accelerating across Africa. “In Kenya, which is a more mature Android market, 52% of monthly sales are Android phones,” Taylor adds.

“We wanted to make sure that the first version of 2go for Android met the high expectations of our passionate user base”, says Wolff when asked why the market has waited so long for an Android version of 2go.

The company, which scaled to over 10 million active users with only four developers, has been actively recruiting developer talent over the last 6 months to help accelerate it in to the smartphone market.

“This is just the beginning for 2go on smartphones,” says Ashley Peter, co-founder of 2go.