"Leave no stone unturned. Leave no opportunity untapped."Â
This seems to be the mantra of almost all giant corporates out there.Â
Tata, Reliance, Amazon, Facebook, PayTM, PhonePe, all are in the race to become the first successful ‘super app’ in India. An app that pretty much removes the need for any other app.
But, how did the ambition of becoming the super app take over the world?
Read on.
When smartphones became mainstream, everything that we needed was being done by one app or the other. The digital economy gave birth to the startup ecosystem. Starting and scaling a new business had become a lot easier.
While many startups failed, a lot of them became our lifelines.
Then something different happened in China. Something that caught the eyes of the Indian industrialists and entrepreneurs.
WeChat, born as the Whatsapp of China in 2011, became a super app in no time. The app was not solely focused on solving ‘one problem’ of the user. It wanted to create an entire ecosystem. It wanted to be a part of ‘every moment of the user's daily life, from morning till night, anytime, anywhere’.
You can order food, buy groceries, book a cab, and do a whole lot of things on WeChat. It is impossible to live in China without WeChat. In fact, it belongs to the coveted club of five apps that has more than a billion active users in the world!
Now the biggies in India started consolidating. However, it wasn’t possible for one company to build a digital prowess in all the sectors from scratch in a short span of time.Â
And the clock was ticking. Quick action was the need of the hour.
Thus, came in: acquisitions and collaborations.Â
Tata acquired majority stakes in BigBasket, CureFit, 1MG among others. Reliance Jio acquired stakes in Just Dial, NetMeds, Urban Ladder. PhonePe and PayTM have their own mini-app stores for users to transact on.
Even Adani and ITC are now dreaming of a super-app for all their offerings.
But the Indian government has put a roadblock to their dreams. As per the proposed Consumer Protection (e-commerce) Rules, 2020, a company that becomes a marketplace cannot have its own offerings (or offerings of its related parties) listed on it.Â
While this law aims to protect the small players, it is worrisome for the dreamers of super-app. How?Â
Tata cannot sell Tata Salt, Reliance cannot sell Hamleys’ toys.Â
Well, that isn’t the only problem.
WeChat succeeded in China because people spend a significant chunk of time texting. Their usage of the app was so high that it was easier for WeChat to integrate other goods and services on the app and get people to use those features too. Additionally, the app culture was just taking off. So the habit of using a super-app was built pretty early in the digitisation lifecycle of a user.
However, in India, there does not seem to be a hook in the super-app ecosystem. Something that people will be tempted to open the app again and again. We are already used to having multiple apps that fulfill our diverse needs. How do these companies plan to change that habit-loop for us?
From the perspective of the companies, super apps look really interesting. They can sell more offerings to the users, get more quality data about the users, and attract loyal consumers.Â
But it remains to be seen, will super apps live up to the hype? What are your thoughts?
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