1.6 million South Africans have stopped using mobile social network Mxit as competition from the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp and even WeChat intensifies.

On Thursday, the Stellenbosch headquartered Mxit unveiled its “Insights Pack” for media and advertisers, which points to a year-on-year decline in monthly active users in South Africa from 6.5 million to 4.9 million.

The drop comes amid the likes of Facebook and WhatsApp coming to dominate South Africa’s social media landscape.

Last year, research firm World Wide Worx and social media monitoring company Fuseware released statistics suggesting Facebook has grown to over 9.4 million active users in South Africa. Meanwhile, a ‘Mobility 2014 research study' compiled by research firm World Wide Worx with the backing of First National Bank (FNB) claimed that WhatsApp has 10 million users in South Africa.

Newcomer WeChat has also moved aggressively on the South African social media space as popular shock-jock Gareth Cliff launched a channel on the service geared for his online radio station CliffCentral.com.

Amid more South African competition, Mxit has set its sights on bigger emerging markets by officially launching in India this year and renewing marketing efforts in Nigeria.

Mxit; though, is facing stiff competition in Nigeria in the form of Cape Town based 2go. Research firm ‘africapractice’ says 2go is Nigeria’s biggest social network with 13 million users in the country.

But in a bid to temper its declining South African market, Mxit says more than 7.4 million users have installed its version 7 app: the next iteration of the software that was launched in November 2013.

“We are still unrivalled in terms of our ability to provide a smart experience for feature phone users. In the past year, we have sharpened our focus on smart applications, whilst maintaining interoperability on more than 8000 devices,” says Mxit chief executive Francois Swart in a statement.

Mxit adds in a statement that 55% of its version 7 users are active while smart device users of the traditionally feature-phone focused app are up as well.

Mxit goes on to say that time per user on its app has increased from 95 to 105 minutes.

The social network says that it has experienced good commercial success in the last year as eight of South Africa’s top ten advertisers have a presence on the app.

Political parties such as the DA and ANC also aggressively used Mxit in the runup to elections this year.

Mxit; though, does not disclose any financial results.