IM client and social networking platform, MXit, has announced a rapid growth in the registration of new users, following the recent upgrading of its design and functionality at the end of June.

This redesign, as featured in MXit V6, includes a completely new look as well as search functionality that allows users to find and manage contacts, services and applications within MXit. There is also a ‘friends’ navigation feature which enables users to view more detailed information about their contacts.

Safety remains important and the latest version also features a number of new security measures, including allowing users to manage their privacy settings by enabling or disabling their profiles in public searches.

Faster adoption rate

In the first week alone over 1.1 million users downloaded the new-look version and daily registrations of new users increased by 25% to 60 000 new registrations per day. MXit has also more than tripled its community of users in the last two years and believes that the reinvented version will appeal to both its loyal South African market and to a global base of users.

The new changes were set in motion by the company’s innovation team almost 18 months ago, and will result in additional functionality making its way to MXit’s 37 million+ users.

According to the company this redesign is merely the first step in the mobile social network’s path to global leadership. It will be followed by a number of new innovations over the next 12 months, which will distinguish MXit from all other global social networks.

“People that don’t use MXit still think of it as an instant messaging platform, and although we will always retain that feature because of its enormous value to our users, we are proud to say that the evolution of MXit over the last five or so years has culminated in it becoming a serious player in the global social networking space,” said Juan du Toit, head of international business development and marketing for MXit.

Features that make MXit a fully-integrated mobile social network

Besides popular one-to-one and group chat features, MXit’s suite of services and applications include the following:

• Email facilities that allow users to compose and use email from their mobile phones.

• Entertainment features such as interactive games, music, mobile phone application downloads, sport, news and weather updates, competitions and questionnaires.

• A classified section, called MXit Xchange, is also used by north of 18.5 million MXit users. This inventory is refreshed every seven days to keep content relevant and fresh.

• The platform also features MXit Cares, which offers users free real-time advice and counseling on subject matter the likes of drug and substance abuse, counseling users on HIV/Aids, debt counseling, as well as career guidance. MXit works with agencies including Childline, Cell-Life and RLabs to bring professional counseling to its users.

• MXit Cares has also teamed up a number of professional educators to provide a number of online tutorials, quizzes and information that will assist students navigate subjects such as maths, physical science and life sciences.

• MXit V6 allows users to search for friends using their name, email or telephone number.

• It also enables users to locate friends by uploading their telephone book contacts.