In a world of heavy social media use, mobile app Mxit — which is wildly popular in South Africa, and 127 other countries — is ahead of the curve. This is largely due to its ability to be used on the most basic of cellular phones and smartphones. With over 7.4 million users, Mxit’s mobile platform accessibility has allowed the app to beat Facebook in popularity and active users in South Africa.
Recently, the app released Mxit7 for feature phones and joined the Digital Media and Marketing Association. Mxit has come a long way from where it started in the early 2000s. Then, Namibian-born software developer and founder Herman Heunis had an idea for being able to play games inexpensively with people all over the world. Instead of communicating via SMS texts, Heunis’ idea snowballed into a more economical way to chat with friends using a mobile instant messenger.
By 2006, the company began to grow into what it is today. Mxit, a visually stunning chat app which allows users to draw, record messages and upload photos and backdrops also integrates games, health, safety and education information into its social media platform.
“Being mobile first we are able to solve problems for emerging markets, rather than trying to be a social network that’s usually ‘PC first’ — which becomes a dumbed-down version of itself on mobile,” Francois Swart, MXit CEO told AFKInsider.
The History of Mxit
In South Africa, and other countries in Africa, the use of computers amongst residents in rural areas isn’t overly common. This rise of cell phone use — even amongst those who lack other tech resources — has helped to make Mxit successful in its reach of the company’s target audience, ages 13-35.
In 2011, Heunis sold all of his shares in the company to Alan Knott-Craig Jr. and went on a sabbatical. The following year, Craig left his position as CEO allowing Francois Swart to step in temporarily. In September, Swart was officially appointed as the CEO of Mxit.
Following that adjustment was the announcement of Michael Jordaan, former CEO of First National Bank (FNB), joining the board of directors as the new chairman. Jordaan is known for his technical advancements in South Africa, creating digital and mobile solutions. It was only befitting that the man behind FNB’s banking app — the first in the country — bring his expertise to a company which also uniquely integrates advertisement.
“He is a great guy with a wealth of experience who led a South African-based bank to be the most innovative bank in the world,” Swart said about Jordaan. “We can learn from his experience and knowledge. His role is to assist me and to assist with strategy and international expansion.”
Connecting Advertisers with Users
The company has maintained and grown in capacity during all of the changes over the years because of its one-of-a-kind approach to connecting users with each other, advertisers and market research. The one-on-one chat, group chats, and public chat rooms allow content to be catered to users on the free app.
Mxit Reach, a mobile service supporting non-profits allows access to users interested in education, community, and healthcare. Some of the resources Mxit Reach promotes (via apps) are study tools for students, counseling, HIV/AIDS awareness and literacy. Social partners and educational institutions host content on this platform.
The content leads to advertisements, market research with Pondering Panda, and Mxit Reach for social development — which can at best be described as apps inside of the app.
“[Its] richer in functionality than WhatsApp, but more focused and less cluttered than Facebook,” Swart explained.
Mxit and Pondering Panda
Another successful partnership Mxit has is with Pondering Panda, a market research company, which has been able to survey over 4 million people using the mobile app.
“They are the major platform we use to conduct our market research when we talk to young people and engage with them,” said Johan van der Merwe, Pondering Panda spokesperson.
Posing questions on Mxit, the company prides itself in making user engagement fun and interesting. Pondering Panda’s response from Mxit users is so great that they don’t have to seek many other platforms to get the information they need.
“The Mxit base is so big and engaged that we haven’t needed to push really hard in other bases we can leverage,” said Merwe.
Extensive user engagement is not only good for market research, but also advertisement. Some of the largest global companies advertise with Mxit such as Coca-Cola, Kotex, and KFC. They’ve made it easy — through Mxit Launch — for companies to reach users with a web-based drag-and-drop app builder. Mxit brings in additional revenue from its users through Moola.
Although the app is free, Mxit’s virtual currency Moola allows users to purchase emoticons, sticker, skin, and gifts.
“We do not charge for the utility of chat but we charge micro amounts for entertainment or for personalizing your phone,” Swart added.
The simplicity of being able to access and use the mobile app has pushed Mxit past Facebook and Twitter while using its popularity to make a social difference with Mxit Reach. Only time will tell if other mobile based apps in Africa will follow suit in popularity, connecting its users through an easy to use, cost effective approach.