Mxit originates from Stellenbosch, a university town in South Africa. In 1997, Herman Heunis established Swist Group Technologies and focused primarily on the mobile telecommunications industry, developing software and providing system support to large Telco's. In 2000 Clockspeed Mobile, a research and development division of Swist Group Technologies, developed a Massive Multiplayer Mobile game named Arya. The game was SMS based and was not successful due to the high cost of SMS since GPRS was still not widely implemented. In 2003 the game was reassessed and the MXit concept was conceived by Herman that same year, MXit has evolved to become a major IM player in the South African arena thereafter. In April 2004 Clockspeed Mobile became independent and on July 1, 2006 became MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. In January 2007, media giant Naspers acquired a 30% stake in the company for an undisclosed amount. In 2013, competitor 2go overtook Mxit in term of users across Africa.