Answer to Question #246440 in Management for Nhlaphu

Question

In 2013, chat app Mxit a South African social networking platform reported that its monthly
active user base was 7.5 million – but this figure dropped to just 1.2 million monthly active
users in July 2015. In October 2015, Mxit announced that it was finally shutting down its
corporate operations but would still leave the app available for download and use. Yet, a year
later in October 2016, the app users couldn’t send and receive anymore. The start-up was
founded in 2004. Mxit rode the instant messaging wave before the likes of BlackBerry
Messenger and WhatsApp took off with the advent of smartphones and was a popular app of
choice among South African teens and twenty-somethings when it entered the pre￾smartphone era in 2005. In 2012, it acquired Motribe - a platform that allowed anyone,
anywhere to build, manage and generate revenue from their own social mobile website.
1. Is there anything that they could have done differently to achieve their planned
objectives? Justify your answer.

Answer 1

1) The company should launch a new version 7 of its app to keep up with the violent competition in the instant messaging market to grab it's worldwide users’ attention just like other platforms like Line, WhatsApp, Kakao Talk, WeChat, BBM, Hike, Viber and Tango.

2) Going by the social media updates, users are particularly impressed by the rebranding. From the curvy logo, it's look and feel of the new app which could translate to 1,000,000 downloads on the first day of launch.

3) Embracing one of Mxit’s ability to receive messages offline. For feature phones, they have group chats, chat tabs, and offline messages, all on data-light (technology that consume 10 times less mobile bandwidth). For iOS 7, Mxit 7 has features like doodle and voice chat, which puts it at par with the other apps in the league.

4) Continuing a fast and data-light on feature phones, a market which their big competitors tend to ignore. Mxit version 7 will run on more than 8,000 types of devices, including tablets and it embraces the capabilities of each platform to offer an immersive chat experience that feels native to each one.

5) Strategically shaping the reach of Mxit’s internal currency, called Moola. It is currently available in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Lesotho, Indonesia and the United Kingdom for users to enter Mxit Chat Zones or buy games, music, skins and wallpapers on the platform using Mxit wallet. Currently, most IM app sells only stickers on their platform.