It’s been a while since I reported on the growth of MXit. And I finally found a confirmation of the current numbers from this Moneyweb article. The worldwide growth has now reached 7.5 million users, with 6.5 million in South Africa. And that means 1 million international users. This is 43 million off from their stated goal of 50 million users by the end of 2008. However, their new general manager, Paul Stemmet, believes they have cracked the code of what works with their teenage users.
What is really surprising is that 60% of MXit users are now aged 18-25 years old. Not long ago (1 year), this segment accounted for 30% of MXit users, while 12-18 year olds accounted for 33% of total users. So there is now a marked shift to older users. And this demographic overlaps much more with Facebook users’ demographic. However, it should be noted that Facebook still has less than 1 million users in South Africa.
Anyway, so what does this mean for parents? Well, the obvious things to note is that MXit is continuing to grow at a healthy rate, easily between 10,000 to 15,000 users per day. So, even with 10,000 new users per day, MXit will be touching the 10 million mark by December. You know it is a given that cellphone usage, SMS messages and MXit usage spike over the holidays as society embraces the Christmas spirit. So it’s a given that MXit will crack that magical number. And once they reach the double digit, I believe that will open the floodgates even further for adoption.
I have said in the past that Vodacom’s The Grid and MTN’s NokNok are poor imitations, even though I have not used either. It’s simply this fact – they launched long after MXit became the de facto chat application used by the masses. And they are simply playing catch-up with a smaller, leaner and meaner company.
However, MXit has long planned a clothing line, which goes against all the best branding strategies I have learned from Al and Laura Ries. The clothing line is what’s called a line extension and is bound to be popular initially and later on die down. This is a distraction from the core focus of the company. And if they do not partner with a specialist on this project, it is doomed before they print the first t-shirt.
Parents and teachers need to pay careful attention to the growth of MXit users because it means that the likelihood of cyberbullying, abuse and addiction grows. The best way to combat this is through setting boundaries at home, offering guidelines to children and working with teachers and their schools to reinforce good online etiquette from the earliest ages when they are first given cellphones. The biggest elements missing in school computer curriculum is a combination of online safety and online etiquette.
Do you know the LSM of the MXit users in South Africa?