MXit gives away 10,000 6-month airtime contracts for free; launches v5.1

Will you have a read of this? Got the news in this afternoon from Sarah who’s heading up MXit’s PR. Not only has mobile messaging service MXit reached version 5.1, they’ve also got 3 million users. Geez. What performance! Last time I looked it was 1.5 millionish.

To celebrate, MXit is giving away airtime contracts, free for 6 months. Very interesting. I’ve copied the entire release as I reckon it’s going to be interesting to quite a few readers:

MXit, South Africa’s leading mobile instant messaging service, is giving away 10,000 six-month airtime contracts worth R135 every month to subscribers. First it turned the mobile industry on its head by providing text messages at a tenth of the price of the traditional operators, now MXit makes communications in SA cheaper. Cheaper…and better. MXit has just released the latest version of its software with some hot new features.

The MXit Freetime Competition is open to MXit subscribers on MTN prepaid packages. Subscribers can visit Tradepost, the MXit trading area to enter, or visit forum.mixit.co.za and click on ‘Tradepost Treasure Competitions” for more details.

‘MXit is the most fun way to stay in touch. It’s cheap, so you aren’t worrying about your phone bill, and it’s more interactive than boring old SMS,” says Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit. ‘The service is wildly popular, with over three million subscribers that love the way they can chat using their phones for very little money. You can chat with your friends and family, or chat anonymously in the MXit chat rooms. This MXit Freetime promotion is a ‘thank you’ to our subscribers for their support and encouragement as we revolutionise the communications industry in this country.”

MXit continues to enhance its user experience with the launch of Version 5.1. Some of the new features in version 5.1 of MXit include ‘mood status” to tell your contacts how you’re feeling. ‘Are you happy? Sad? Nervous? Mood status lets your friends know how you are feeling before they have even started texting you,” says Heunis.

MXit has also added a number of convenient new shortcuts. Users can now Press ## to instantly mute their sound, press #1 to toggle between showing and hiding their offline contacts and press #2 to jump to Presence and Mood Status. A new progress indicator bar shows how far you’ve got when transferring files. These features add to the other great innovations introduced when MXit V5.0 was first released, including Skinz to customise the interface, and Moola e-money top-ups from Tradepost.

Note that not all phones support all MXit features, which are dependant on the particular handset’s processing power.

If you haven’t checked it out, it’s totally worth a look — the client should work ok if you’re not in South Africa — it worked fine for me — just some of the elements of the service require South African premium SMS service to properly function. But you can get a super look at it wherever you are.

While we’re at it, here’s the boilerplate on MXit:

MXit is a free mobile instant messaging solution that provides low cost text based communication to mobile users. The aim is to create a global community with access to cost effective and accessible communication and entertainment services.

With 3 million users and in excess of a hundred million text messages being sent per day, the business case for brand exposure, building and owning communities as well as advertising is compelling.