It has been blown at stadiums around the country and recently found its way to Zurich in Switzerland.
Many people, including former president Nelson Mandela, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Anglican cleric Desmond Tutu, used the vuvuzela horn in Zurich to celebrate the announcement that South Africa had won the right to host the 2010 World Cup.
However, controversy has erupted over who really has the rights to the now famous horn, which was recently trademarked by a Cape company.
Soon after the victory announcement, brewery giant SABMiller and Neil van Schalkwyk and Beville Bachmann, of the Masincedisane Sport company, who have been manufacturing the horn for the past three years, trademarked the vuvuzela horn name because it is almost certain to become the official symbol of the 2010 tournament.
But the leaders of the Nazareth Baptist Church -famously known as Shembe in Durban - claim the church has been using the horn since 1910.
Shembe spokesperson Enock Mthembu said on Monday that the plastic horn had become a familiar sight when it started being used by Zulu Royals football club (formerly AmaZulu football club) fans from KwaMashu and Inanda in the late 1980s.
To support his claim, Mthembu showed a video, shot by London film-makers in 1916, titled The Festival Of The Nazarites, which shows church members dancing and blowing the horn, which they make from cow skin.
"The horn is called imbomu. We have been using it for years.
"Our church members at our headquarters in Ebuhleni in Inanda have been making it by hand ever since the church started," said Mthembu.
He said Zulu Royal football club supporters fell in love with the horn and used it at soccer games. It was then adopted by supporters of PSL champions Kaizer Chiefs and has been widely used ever since.
Orlando Pirates supporters also use the horn, which makes a thundering, nonstop sound. Today it retails for between R20 and R30.
The business development manager for SABMiller, Trudy van Niekerk, said the company had trademarked the name "vuvuzela", not the design.
"SABMiller is protecting the legal and mentoring interests of the Masincedisane Sport company for the trumpet to become fully trademarked after the brewery awarded the company the 2001 SAB KickStart Award, which supports starting entrepreneurs," she said.
The co-owner of the Masincedisane Sport company, Neil van Schalkwyk, said "We are trying to protect the name of the product which has been in use for years because unscrupulous competitors can use it anywhere else and sell cheap imitations of it.
"We're not saying we invented the product but we are protecting the name."
He did not know about the originality of the vuvuzela but said that a week after the bid announcement, the company discovered that they could not register an Internet domain name called "vuvuzela2010" for a website.
An overseas company already owns it.
"That's how competitors do it. But this is a proudly South African product and people should be proud that we have trademarked the name," said Van Schalkwyk.
"We are not claiming that we were the first to produce it, but we have trademarked the name to protect it."