Super-ish Apps

So many features, so little time

In the past couple of years, super apps have taken much of Asia by storm.

WeChat, AliPay, Grab, and Go-jek are a couple examples of super apps. They have Facebook Messenger-like features. They also have Grubhub-like features. And Uber. And Venmo. AirBnB. Lime Bike. Slack.

Many even offer extremely niche services. For example, users can get medical insurance on Grab or request massages on Gojek. All merged into unicorn Frankensteins.

The screen on the left is from WeChat, and the one on the right is from AliPay. Source: Jing Daily

Since its 2011 release, WeChat quickly ballooned to over 1.1 billion users in 2018 and boasts incredible engagement — over 1/3 of users spend 4+ hours daily in the app, with 64 of those minutes spent in WeChat’s ‘mini programs’ (2019) or third party integrations, handily beating Instagram’s average of 53 minutes a day (2018). Furthermore, 93% of mobile payments in China come from WeChat Pay and AliPay serving 900 million and 500 million unique MAU respectively. These success stories have then been further repeated by a handful of super apps across Asia.

Mobile payments in Asia make buying coffee easier than adding a SnapChat friend. Source: MimeAsia

These apps’ target demographic is everyone, yet years of successful entrepreneurs have repeated the sentiment that…