Super Apps

Super Apps, a term that became mainstream thanks to a 2015 podcast by Andreessen Horowitz. A super app is a closed ecosystem with multiple apps and services that work together seamlessly. They offer a wide range of options to users within this ecosystem.

WeChat is the classic example of a super app. WeChat started out as a messaging app. Which then branched out to be a social media app. Eventually, they integrated financial services that allowed users to send money to each other, order services, order in restaurants and use WeChat as a default payment method.

AliPay took a different path. They began as a payment app. And then integrated other features.

Why are they becoming more popular? From a user point of view, super apps can tie in different services and offer user experiences that other conventional apps just cannot. A single app is perhaps better at keeping the attention of the users. Less context switching.

Super apps by definition is a suite of apps. More often users can find features that they didn’t know that they wanted. It provides a good imperative to easily get hooked on these features simply because of its convenience. Super apps benefit from the amount of data it has access to. The users still only see one company and one set of privacy policy.

This is also a direct outcome of API’s fueling digital growth. Most companies would like to build a brand and business around a service or a product. Some companies are better off with just offering an API and letting other businesses figure out the rest of the value chain. Getting features/integrated to a super app is like getting featured in the front page of reddit, but for API companies.

Even though these kind of apps are most common in Asia, there is growing interest for super apps globally. Google is probably at the right place at the right time to capitalise on such a service. They already run a tight ship with their suite of apps. But packaging them into a coherent set of features of a super app might not be that far away.