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Nigeria’s 2go Mobile Social Network Goes Android

Nigeria’s 2go Mobile Social Network Goes Android

From African Business Review.

Creators of 2go, Nigeria’s largest mobile social network, have launched an app for Android on the Google Play Store.

2go is a chat-based mobile network targeting users in emerging markets with 30 million-plus  registered users including more than 10 million active users in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, according to a report in  in African Business Review.

The company has been recruiting talent over the past six months to help accelerate it into the smartphone market, the report says.  Feature phones still dominate in Nigeria with around 88 percent of market share, although Android use is growing.

Alan Wolff co-founded 2go with Ashley Peter while attending university in Johannesburg in 2007. Android is the fastest-growing mobile platform in Africa with devices for less than $50 “on the horizon,” Wolff said in an interview in African Business Review. He said 2go’s mostly feature-phone user base can now migrate with 2go as it moves to smartphones.

Android phones represent 5.2 percent of monthly phone sales in Nigeria, up from 3.4 percent in September 2012, said Brad Taylor, managing director of GfK South Africa, in the report.

Kenya, by contrast, has a more mature Android market with 52 percent of monthly sales going to Android phones, Taylor said.

Wolf said his company took its time developing the Android version of 2go to make sure it was just right.

2go for Android now includes push notifications and a sleek user interface which is intuitive and easy to use. “This is just the beginning for 2go on smartphones,” Peter said, according to the report.

Read more at African Business Review.