A quick office survey shows that once upon a time Mxit was actually very popular, although I have missed the boat on that one because I wasn’t a dabbler myself.

The latest survey on the number of active users shows that even if you were a user back in the day you’re probably losing interest now, their numbers tanking from 4.9 million in 2014 to 2.7 million in 2015.

Those numbers are according to the SA Social Media Landscape 2016 report from World Wide Worx and monitoring company Fuseware, although Mxit aren’t taking the stats lying down. Here’s their CEO Francois Swart responding on Fin24:

“Mxit has 88 million registered users globally. We achieved 17 million unique app downloads in 2014, and our monthly active users (MAU) in January in South Africa (alone) were more than 2.7 million,” said Swart at the time.

“Although the MAU for South Africa is lower than the same period last year, it is much higher than reported in the media. Our users continue to be the most engaged of any social media, and spend more than 90 minutes per day on the platform.

“There are a number of reasons for the decline in MAU, most notably the global momentum of WhatsApp over the past year and the rate at which we were able to prioritise our development on smart operating systems at the turn of the decade,” said Swart.

Stories such as THESE won’t do faith in the mobile social network any good, although they are looking at changing tack somewhat to encourage users to stay on board. These include a focus on social services such as access to free education, health and counselling services.

What makes their numbers even worse is that they come against a backdrop of an increased online presence across the board for other apps and networks. Fin24 again:

…there are now 13 million South Africans on Facebook, with 10 million, or 77%, using it on mobile devices.
Also, the number of Instagram users has shot up from 1.1 million in 2014 to 2.68 million in 2015 – almost matching Mxit use.

However you look at it, the latest study it won’t make for pretty reading if you’re a Mxit fan. Is Whatsapp to Mxit what Facebook was to Myspace, basically a death knoll? Only time will tell, although my money is definitely on Whatsapp to win any kind of battle.

[sourcefin24]