The number of monthly active users on mobile social network Mxit has fallen from 4,9m in 2014 to 2,7m in 2015.

This is according to the South African Social Media Landscape 2016 report from World Wide Worx and monitoring company Fuseware.

This means that Mxit is far off its own previously reported figure of 7,5m users in January 2013.

Mxit was not willing to comment on the research.

But the company did point to a statement it released in March this year from its CEO, Francois Swart, in which he also criticised media coverage of Mxit’s user base.

“Mxit has 88m registered users globally. We achieved 17m unique app downloads in 2014, and our monthly active users (MAUs) in January in South Africa alone were more than 2,7m,” said Swart at the time.

“Although the MAUs for South Africa are 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 MAUs, 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.

Swart in his statement also said that Mxit planned to focus more on social services in future such as access to free education, health and counselling services on their mobile phones.

Meanwhile, the shrinking active monthly user base of Mxit is in contrast to Facebook and Instagram’s growth.

According to the South African Social Media Landscape study, there are now 13m South Africans on Facebook, with 10m, or 77%, using it on mobile devices.

Also, the number of Instagram users has shot up from 1,1m in 2014 to 2,7m in 2015 — almost matching Mxit use. — Fin24