Super Apps: Race to build the ‘One’!
‘All for One and One For All’ - Alexandre Dumas
Super Apps are a rising trend in India as many leading banks, Bigtechs and conglomerate houses are trying to offer a diverse set of products and services to satisfy each and every need of the customer. In this race, players are trying to position their app around a core service and supplement it with other auxiliary services by partnering with sister companies within the Group or with cross-industry players.
As of now, it is raining super apps in India, literally! In the past 2–3 years, Indian consumers have seen apps like –
- Banking Space — SBI YONO by State Bank Of India, BoB World by Bank of Baroda, iMobile Pay by ICICI Bank
- Payment Space — PayTM by One97, GPay by Google, PayZapp by HDFC, PhonePe by Flipkart
- Non-Financial Space — Amazon apps from Amazon, Apps from Reliance conglomerate like JioMart, JioTV, etc.
Another Indian conglomerate, the Tata Group, is also trying to combine all its group services and offerings and bring it under one super app.
The Super App trend and reasons for its growth in India
The Super Apps trend is not new; it emerged initially in China and other southeast nations. In China, WeChat was successful in tapping this idea. What started out as a simple messaging app has entered into Payments, cab hiring, eCommerce, Grocery, Food ordering and delivery platforms, among others. Thus, growing leaps and bounds across various service segments, ultimately becoming a Super App.
The same template is being followed in India, where every major Super App is trying to capture as many customers as possible. These apps are making an effort to address every consumer need throughout the customers’ lifecycle, with an overarching objective to give full-service play from the Cradle to the Grave stage of the customer. Hence, the business needs to onboard a wide gamut of services, capture and derive insightful actions from the customer data using AI, ML & Deep Learning tools to identify their needs and offer appropriate offerings. Apart from providing additional avenues for businesses to expand and realise more revenue, these efforts provide tons of data about the consumer’s behaviour which can help in build hyper-personalised product & services offerings.
To complement it all, the Indian masses are increasingly getting exposed to the internet and smartphones. As of 2021, there are 624 million internet users, 1.1 billion mobile connections in India, and the internet penetration stands at 45%. Hence, there is still a massive room for internet services to expand. And, thanks to the pandemic and work from home trends, there is a permanent alteration to consumer behaviour as they have a higher inclination to purchase everything online and search for more services online.
Is the Super App trend really that new to India? Have we seen such Super Apps in the past? What happened to them?
If you may remember this ad –
In this ad, Mr Bachchan tries to convince viewers that — why have so many apps for online shopping, movies, restaurants, doctors, travel, hotels & grocery if all of these services are provided by one JustDial app. For sure, the messaging was quite strong in the ad, but it failed to live up to its utility.
In 2014, JustDial was India’s leading internet venture, which replaced the yellow pages and phone dictionaries at home. In those days, it had a valuation of $ 1.8B, even higher than Flipkart and other Startups. As of now, its valuation has severely decreased to ₹2500 Cr, almost 80% down.
JustDial is still present, but it has lost the plot. It couldn’t re-invent its services in the wake of disruptive digital apps like Google Maps, UrbanClap, MakeMyTrip, Amazon and Swiggy, among others. It couldn’t survive the competition from these players who do really well in their specific business segments. JustDial didn’t have a unique offering that could stand out, and it was a simple search service. It suffered due to the ‘I-Do-Everything’ approach. Now, any customer will not open JustDial to search for restaurants and food, but he will definitely open Swiggy, Zomato, Easy Diners and the likes.
Evolving Scope of Businesses & The Choice Overload Problem
In this race to build a Super App and provide every kind of possible service to the customer, the businesses are crossing their boundary of scope and entering into new spaces.
Today a Banking app also provides an in-app browsing experience to partner services like eCommerce, Movies, Travel, Travel and Entertainment, among others. Some players are trying to build everything in-house and consolidate it under one umbrella instead of cross-industry partnerships. This diagonal expansion strategy has widened the business scope and also the definition of the business segment that everyone is in.
For e.g., banks are moving from providing traditional banking services to lifestyle banking services.
These diagonal expansion strategies have led to a consolidation of various services under one roof. Large businesses would diagonally expand and acquire a smaller player to support themselves in this race.
The consumers, as of now, are getting a better deal as all these services are available in one place, and they are earning many rewards for using them. The problem here for businesses is ensuring customer loyalty in the long term. The Super Apps space is growing, but it is bound to get crowded in the ensuing years. Eventually, customers will face the same issue that they are suffering right now — the Choice Overload Problem.
The next question for customers will be —
Which Super App is best for me? and which one should I use as a customer?
Here, the challenge for businesses will be in ensuring customer loyalty, reducing the clutter, providing every possible personalized service at low prices and yet building a super light Super App, which should be quick for browsing. Well, not everything would be possible, but it is still the aspiration!
Concluding Thoughts
A consolidation trend for businesses in the Super Apps space is a possibility. Big fishes may gobble the smaller ones to satisfy their monopolistic tendencies.
Will there be a Super Super App for Super Apps? Probably!
PS:
· In my next article, I’ll talk about the issues related to consumer behaviour, the problems that Super Apps may face and their future perspective.
https://medium.com/@rakhame.devendra/super-apps-issues-and-future-perspectives-89de9479bd8f
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