HIGHLIGHTS:
• Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis coined the term SuperApp in 2010
• In India, many apps such as Jio, Paytm, and PhonePe have become super apps
• These aps perform to bring multi services in a single platform
How many apps do you have on your smartphone? 10, 25 or 50? Of course, each one has its own special function and that is why they are installed into your mobile. How about if one app does all the work for you? To fulfill this desire of consumers, super apps have been launched in many countries of the world.
In India, work on the Super App is also underway. There were reports two months ago that the Tata group, which makes everything from salt to software, is working on an all-in-one super app. ITC announced the creation of a comparable super app for farmers at its Annual General Meeting last week.
What are these super apps?
• Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis coined the term SuperApp in 2010. Super App, means a platform on which all the needed goods and services are available.
• One such app in China is WeChat. It started as a messaging app. After this, payments, shopping, food ordering, cab services were also available on it and thus it became a super app. You can also imagine Super App as a mall, where in the retail space you will find shops of all brands and businesses and verticals.
Who Makes such Super Apps?
Typically, such businesses create super applications that provide a wide range of services and products. Through Super App, they are attempting to bring these services together on a single platform.
SuperApp was first introduced in China and Southeast Asia. To boost their earnings, WeChat, GoJek, and Grab began selling new services. These businesses adopted these initiatives to improve client traffic on their platforms, which were based on social media and communication requirements.
In India, which companies are creating amazing super apps?
In India, many apps such as Jio, Paytm, and PhonePe have become super apps. It offers a variety of features and products. On its platform, Jio wants to provide more than 100 products and services. It has also received funding from Facebook and Google for this. The Tata Group and ITC are the latest additions to India’s super app ecosystem.
• Jio: Previously, Reliance Industries unified its various services like as shopping, multimedia streaming, food, payments, cloud storage, and ticket bookings under the Jio brand.
• Paytm: Paytm’s platform, which is backed by Alibaba Group and is gearing up for an IPO, isn’t far behind. Beginning with payments, this all-in-one software now includes ticketing, gaming, online shopping, banking, consumer finance, and investment opportunities.
• PhonePe: Similarly, Ola Cabs, Swiggy, Grofers, Ajio, Decathlon, Delhi Metro, and Booking.com (booking.com) are all available on the Flipkart Group’s payments app PhonePe.
• ITC: ITC, one of the country’s leading FMCG businesses, recently announced the debut of ITC MAARS, a powerful app. Meta Market for Advanced Agriculture and Rural Services (MAARS) is an acronym for
Meta Market for Advanced Agriculture and Rural Services. This would help ITC grow its world-class brands while also raising money for farmers.
Why are Indian corporations so interested in developing super apps?
When a huge populace demands more and more services and features via a smartphone rather than a desktop, a country or region is considered suitable for a super app. A major cause for this is the lack of an ecosystem of apps to address local demands.
India is becoming a market where the Internet is being used by a big number of people. 90% of subscribers now use their mobile phones to access the internet. As a result, most businesses are developing extraordinary applications. Apart from that, Super Apps may collect more data about user behaviour from consumer data while also raising revenue.
Do Super Apps Provide a Safe Solution to Consumers?
No, Monopoly poses the greatest threat. When a single platform provides the majority of services and a large number of consumers are connected to it, the company becomes a market monopoly. Apart from that, because Super Apps frequently collaborate with third-party service providers, the problem of privacy becomes quite essential.
Experts claim that employing artificial intelligence, the data acquired from the Master App allows robots to better analyse and predict user behaviour. This is one of the reasons why Super Apps haven’t taken off in the United States and the United Kingdom.
