Introduction of Super Apps – What is a super app?

Definition of Super Apps

Super app is a one-stop portal where users can access an innumerable number of approved third-party services like hailing a cab, buying movie tickets, ordering food delivery, paying utility bills, or sending money to friends. All of these are integrated and can be done in one single app!

What is a super app

The ability to communicate, shop online, order rides, read books, play games, get food delivery and pay for anything within a single, unified smartphone app is Asia’s defining innovation, technology leaders said at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore.

Application of Super Apps – The Rise of Super Apps

WeChat, Grab and Go-Jek are prime examples of a breed of software called Super Apps. In the U.S. and Europe, such services are offered separately for iPhone and Android users. That’s not the case in China and Southeast Asia, where the apps open the door for big changes to how people live and do business, according to Southeast Asia’s two most valuable startups, Grab and Go-Jek.

In the U.S. and Europe, such services are offered separately for iPhone and Android users. That’s not the case in China and Southeast Asia, where the apps open the door for big changes to how people live and do business, according to Southeast Asia’s two most valuable startups, Grab and Go-Jek.

Grab and Go-Jek began as ride-hailing platforms, but swiftly evolved into apps offering other services centered around payments. By harnessing the data generated by users of multifunctional apps, these providers can gain more insight into their daily behavior and deploy that information to offer new products and services. That’s one of the key building blocks for digital assistants and other services that will begin to use artificial intelligence.

Nadiem Makarim, founder of Go-Jek in Indonesia, “We want to create this first-in-the-world kind of super app that encompasses all your daily transactional needs,”

Go-Jek, with more than 100 million downloads, is preparing to enter Singapore and Thailand after debuting in Vietnam in June, Makarim said. He said Super Apps have become integral to big cities, with their dense populations and intense commercial activity. “As you digitize these movements of humans, goods and tracking transactions, you create a new layer of visibility around how the cities actually operate,” he said.

Follow these articles for more information:

Case Study from “Hike – Transfer from Multi Apps to Super Apps”

In 2012, when Hike was launched, the mobile data market was very small. There were barely a few million mobile data users, that too on 2G and low-end smartphones. Since then we’ve grown Hike into a Super App with Messaging, Content, Services and more, to over 150M users.

REFERNCES:

Miaozhen Zhang (2018, March 26) China’s WeChat: The Power of the Super App

URL: https://medium.com/@miaozhen.zhang/chinas-wechat-the-power-of-the-super-app-dc144657625e

OMR (2018, Jun 28) Meet the next generation of Chinese super apps

URL: https://medium.com/@omrockstars/meet-the-next-generation-of-chinese-super-apps-4098d0e5b72a

Hasan Chowdhury (2018, December 24)  Rise of the ‘super apps’ and the companies using them to take over the world

URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/24/rise-super-apps-companies-using-take-world/