Mike Lazardis, back in 2010, coined the term super apps. Wow, in 2010, that was 12 years ago! Mike was referring to "a closed ecosystem of many apps that offer a seamless, integrated, contextualized and efficient experience."
Super app today is any app on your iPhone or Android that offers more than one core functionality.
Some of the examples of super apps are:
- Grab: When I was in Singapore, Grab was the only app offering Taxi Services. Today, Grab offers a ton of services including GrabPay - mobile wallet app and payment services, telehealth platforms, GrabFresh for food delivery services, Microloans, insurance etc. Grab also offers an open platform strategy allowing 3P to leverage the company’s APIs to offer additional services.
- WeChat: weChat launched as a messaging app in early 2011. Today, it hosts over 1 million “mini-programs” that allows users to do a lot of things including applying for loans, transacting with local businesses, government services, talking to celebrities, ordering food or taxi - pretty much anything you can think of doing from your smartphone today. weChat manages to get a $7 ARPU which is 7x of the ARPU of Whatsapp.
Alipay: Anyone who has lived in China is probably aware of Alipay. It's one of the main payment methods on popular e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall. It also offers a credit-rating system for merchants and consumers. Similar to weChat it offers a ton of services for consumers from shopping to taxi to home delivery services.
Line: Line is to Japan as what weChat is to China. Line has over 44 million users and is a super app that includes offerings such as Line Pocket money - micro loan service that will determine rates and credit limits based on Line Score. Line Score - is a AI driven social credit score system. Line Pockeo is a service that will complement Line Delama food delivery.
There are a dozen other super apps and I predict that many of the apps that exist today will eventually try to turn into a super app. Some of the other super apps across the globe include:
Gojek: It’s the Indonesia competitor to Grab. Offering ride hailing services along with other functionality similar to Grab.
Fave: It's the Singapore based mobile payments and deals platform that recently acquired food delivery startups and is also offering micro loans.
Paytm: Anyone who has heard of India’s demonetization will also know about Paytm. It's the Indian mobile wallet service that also allows users to book air tickets, train tickets, and buy goods from e-commerce subdivision Paytm mall.
PhonPe: India e-commerce giant Flipkart owned Indian payment app that hosts a number of mini-apps (including offerings from Ola (ride hailing), Oyo (Hotel booking) and makemytrip (travel booking))
Meituan: It’s a Chinese super app offering a range of services from food to travel essentials to leisure products
Reliance Jio: One of the largest Telecom providers of India which packs over 100 services in one platform. It is touted to be India’s equivalent rivaling weChat.
It's not just India, China and Southeast asia. Africa seems to be also home to some really major super-apps. This article https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/africans-super-apps-make-life-easier/ details the list of the top African super apps including Me-Pesa which is a super app from Kenya, SafeBoda which is a Ugandan ride hailing platform and Temte One which is Algeria’s ecommerce super app.
What are the benefits of super apps?
For one, it's easy and saves on storage: Especially in countries like India, Southeast Asia where most consumers don't have powerful smartphones.
Low product development cost: Most of the mini-apps on weChat were not developed in-house. Partners create it, allowing for easy integration of 3P mini-apps
Faster time to market: Super apps already have an audience. It's a matter of adding extra functionality to augment the use cases.
Effective onboarding: Because the customer data is already present in the main app; they don't need to sign up. It makes it easier to get users onboarded quickly.
It's likely that many of the payment, crypto and messaging platforms of today will probably become tomorrow’s super apps. If you look at the history of super apps in China and India, most of these super apps originated from payment or messaging platforms. Block (formerly Square) isn’t an app but its kind of super app ecosystem offering peer-to-peer payments (CasApp), crypto and stock trading, lending (Afterpay), music streaming (Tidal) and core merchant payment platforms. The only thing that’s really missing is the addition of social media to this platform.
Recommended Reading: https://www.theverge.com/22738395/social-media-super-app-facebook-wechat-shopping