Mxit needs to target entry-level smartphones
MXit’s CEO Alan Knott-Craig Jnr has his work cut out for him, since buying the service from founder Herman Heunis and media group Naspers in September last year.
The platform is a standalone mobile-value added service provider (MVAS), and was sold as it does “not form an integral part of any of our [Naspers] existing internet platforms and did not fit with our focus on e-commerce in the South African region,” said Naspers investor relations, Meloy Horn.
To remain relevant Deloitte warns that the instant-messaging (IM) service will have to provide a compelling offering for entry-level smartphones very quickly, given the fact that its core focus has been feature phones while at least 300m entry-level smartphones are expected to enter the phone market this year.
According to a Deloitte report on 2012 telecommunications predictions, demand will come from emerging markets – like Africa.
Alan Knott-Craig Jnr
These phones are expected to feature IM services which may come preinstalled on the device and with Mxit’s competitor WhatsApp leading the rankings on the SA Android market, while MXit is fourth, the latter might not win the race in capturing this new market.
In other words, social-network companies that fail to take advantage of this boom on the entry-level smartphone space could face dire consequences.
“Mobile social sites should be looking at where technology is going,” said Trevor Wright, senior manager of TMT at Deloitte.
“I would suspect that there would be an eventual decline in the number of feature phones as entry-level smartphones will replace them,” adds Wright.
Knott-Craig has given the company a one-year deadline to make its platform compatible with all smartphone devices. With hopes of improving the user interface on higher smartphones – like the iPhone.
Wright adds that social media platforms are all about user experience. Saying, that social media users will only move on to a platform that offers them more or better services than their current provider. Thus IM services across the board will have to look into offering users unique and additional services to get ahead.
It will be interesting to see which platforms take off, by taking advantage of the expected surge in entry-level smartphones.
Source: Moneyweb
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