Super App: Is It Another Tech Buzzword?

Most likely, you have come across such a notion as a super app. Good news, this catchword is likely to put down the roots into our everyday life. So why not take a closer look at what’s behind it. After all, super apps are a whole new world that is to be explored.

Super Design of Super Apps

I would start by comparing the philosophy of super apps to the philosophy lying behind the Swiss Army knives. The Swiss Army knife was designed in the 19th century and soon became associated with something “flexible”. Nowadays, it is without a doubt a vivid metaphor for a multifunctional item for many people around the world. The usefulness of this gadget is based on a large number of functions available to its owners— apart from the essential tools, there is a corkscrew, a can opener, miniature saws of all shapes and sizes, scissors, tweezers, a wire stripper and even a toothpick. You can hardly imagine at least one hiking trip without such a tool in your pocket.

So the situation with super applications is very similar. These are also a kind of multi-tool, but in your smartphone. The most prominent examples are Alipay, WeChat, Paytm, or Grab.

But first things first.

One App to Rule Them All

It is still difficult enough to delineate the boundaries of what can be considered a super application. The key element of super apps is the really great functionality, which is possible largely due to the third-party integrations. If it seems to you that one application can be disassembled into several ones without much loss, then most likely you have a super application in front of you.

If we try to find the origins of this phenomenon, then most likely we will encounter WeChat, an application developed by the Chinese giant Tencent and first released on the market 10 years ago. Within 8 years, the app has become one of the biggest apps in the world, with over 1 billion active users. Over time, WeChat ceased to be just an application for messages, like WhatsApp, and began to expand its functionality astronomically — public accounts, moments, digital payment services and mini-programs were added. A special version of the application for work purposes, WeChat Enterprise, was also released.

In short, this is the path of the very first super application: from a messenger to a real ecosystem of various services.

Super Apps in Europe and North America

In Asia, super apps have deep roots, being the most popular apps for a long time. This is largely due to the regional features of the business landscape: the rapid adaptation of the most modern technologies, an acute focus on smartphones, a huge number of potential users, and so on.

Obviously, the climate on different sides of the globe is similar, like chalk and cheese. Will this concept be able to put down new roots in foreign soil, or the conditions are so inappropriate that it is naïve to hope for success?

Well, European and American consumers already on a daily basis deal with solutions that are somewhat similar in design.

Take Uber, for example. Formerly, this application had only one function: to bring the user from point A to point B. With such directness and minimalism, Uber won not only first customers but also decent popularity, having spread all over the world. So far, this does not sound like a normal super app strategy.

But later, new options and services focused on the transportation of passengers began to appear in the application. But the turning point was the day when the company introduced Uber Eats, a food delivery service that almost immediately became as popular as all previous Uber services.

Today, Uber has grown from a simple ride-sharing service to a large technology company that combines everything from food delivery to micro-mobility solutions. And most importantly, all these services are growing together more and more densely under one black-and-white icon.

This is not an exceptional case. At least Google, Facebook and Yandex are going roughly the same way.

Super Apps & Business

It is not easy to classify these multi-purpose apps to any particular domain — they are a unique and distinctive phenomenon, they form a separate category specifically for themselves. At the same time, they often combine industries such as eCommerce, finance, entertainment, or communication.

If we turn to the super app pioneer again for an example, it becomes clear that one of the pillars of WeChat is its services related to finance. People can use the application to shop both in online stores and offline, pay utility bills, conduct money transfers among contacts, and so on and so forth. According to some estimates, for 2019, the number of people actively using payment functions in WeChat exceeded 800 million. In other super apps, financial options are just as important.

There is a place for small businesses in super apps as well. Many modern applications, being ecosystems with their own financial tools, accumulate consumers around their numerous services. Among the services available to the user, you can frequently find taxi services, car sharing, food and grocery delivery, various eCommerce solutions, lodging reservation services, etc.

Summing up

It often happens that trends from the other side of the planet reach us, not as hot as they used to be. However, we have every reason to believe: super applications are here to stay.

It is likely that in the future, we will order pizza, make money transfers and book hotel rooms via one application. So do not be surprised if one day you take your phone and look at your home screen, only to think that now it’s too empty without an oldy-worldy ton of different icons.