MXit on warpath to block American colonialism

Retaining local ownership of social networks in Africa is critical to the continent’s growth, believes Alan Knott-Craig CEO of mobile social networking application, MXit.

“We are only interested in Africa, Africa is the future. He who wins Africa will win the race… if we leave the Americans to get here and take over our networks – it will be another form of colonisation,” said Knott-Craig.

Instant messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Chat and BlackBerry’s messenger service (BBM) have been eating into MXit’ s market share in recent years and are poised to continue doing so.

“The Americans are coming and if they win the social graph then we are dead,” Knott-Craig adds.  The young entrepreneur believes that foreign companies will prioritise their advertising revenue instead of the consumer’s experience when using their platform.

MXit, the largest mobile social network in Africa, was acquired by Knott-Craig’s World of Avatar in September last year from founder Herman Heunis and media group Naspers for an undisclosed amount.

Although doubtful about its performance before acquiring the company, Knott-Craig now believes that MXit has one last chance to further boost its lead on the continent.

Knott-Craig says MXit will have to make a few changes in order to compete with its rivals. “We have to provide more than just chat, as well as a good experience especially on Android devices because this is picking up in Africa.”

In addition Knott-Craig adds that MXit has an advantage over its competitors as feature phones are still the most common phones in the African market, whilst his competition mainly has software that it’s compatible with smartphone devices. But working on a “device– agnostic approach” is MXit’s main objective in the year ahead. “Providing a good experience across all phones is important, regardless of what device is being used,” said Knott-Craig.

We have to get our user experience right on smartphones to match up to the ease of use on feature phones, he added.

Having given the company a year to improve and expand itself, Knott-Craig believes that MXit is a “diamond, covered in coal” and by implementing a few changes (like providing more content and allowing for payments to be made via the platform) it will become a market leader.

“MXit is cool, but we can make it a lot cooler… by adding little things like endorsements and advertising, this will allow us overtime to take over our competition,” said Knott-Craig.

Despite facing broadband challenges in Africa, Knott-Craig believes that it’s just a matter of time before the networks get better- particularly in the mobile space. Whilst MXit is not looking to be associated with an any particular cell phone networks, Knott-Craig, says “he is open to doing business” with them.

Knott- Craig’s father, (Alan Knott-Craig SNR) was recently appointed the CEO of Cell C. He previously headed up, Vodacom.

MXit

Source: Moneyweb