Super app, a term coined by BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis in 2010, is a singular app that combines the most-used features of our smart phones into one seamlessly integrated app.
This app handles everything from calling a taxi, paying your rent, talking to friends and family, and even ordering food. This app can be filled with “mini-programs” that are developed both in-house or by existing services that want their services easily accessible to the Super App’s users.
Super Apps are popping up all over app stores to varying degrees. While Uber has big dreams of becoming the “operating system for your everyday life”, the company is already claiming the title Super App in regards to transportation, food, delivery, and logistics. Spotify is another company trying to make the leap, through the addition of podcasts and chatrooms. Further, Coinbase is also taking steps to solidify itself as more than a crypto exchange through the addition of direct deposits which allows users to get paid in cryptos, as well as Coinbase Card.
Affirm is the latest app to throw its hat in the ring through the addition of debit and crypto services. While it may seem silly that Affirm, a “buy now pay later” service, is making the push into becoming the go-to Super App, it might actually make as much sense as any that Affirm or another financial-related company would eventually take the cake.
This is because Affirm and other financial services have a distinct advantage over competitors: their service already has to do with everything.
You order an Uber, you spend money. You shop online, you spend money. You subscribe to music, again, you spend money. Financial services are directly related to any and all potential services that could be offered and they are already trusted with the thing that users are least trusting about, connecting their bank.
But this advantage is far from simple security concerns, it’s actually about layout and what users came to the app to do in the first place.
WeChat and AliPay are the two of the most successful Super Apps in the world and are the backbones of daily lives in China and India. What we can draw from both of their layouts is that seamless integration needs simplicity to be successful. And that it also needs a large user base before attempting to make the jump.
The starting structure of an app determines the route that must be taken to create a fully integrated app. If you are trying to slowly evolve Uber’s app into a Super App for shopping of all kinds, messaging, keeping up with social media, and gaming, it is going to take a few overhauls to get the layout right as it wasn’t built with “stay and do a lot of stuff other than ridesharing” in mind. And, users didn’t download the app with that in mind. Uber is quickly changing that narrative though, as it has brought Uber Eats, Uber Kittens, and Uber Copter among other things to its original Uber app.
Affirm on the other hand was built to seamlessly integrate online shopping with other companies into its app, and its users definitely downloaded that app to stay on it for longer than ordering a ride as its users are seeking to navigate the platforms of other companies - such as Amazon, Peloton, and Walmart - seamlessly with Affirm’s payment services. This actually makes Affirm’s app structurally very similar to WeChat already, which could help it build out more efficiently and without forcing its users through countless unbearable redesigns.
But having a seamless structure and a large user base aren’t the only things that have to get done right in order to make the switch, but rather, localization of the service is key, and possibly the most important thing. Gojek, a ride-sharing service turned Super App in Indonesia, accomplished this by incentivizing people to be drivers for their service, over other services, by offering loans to its drivers to help the drivers afford smartphones. This helped Gojek build rapport in communities at a more personal level.
Affirm’s advantage in regards to localization is that it helps people afford things and has a platform that can funnel people towards local shops. Plus, it definitely helps that local businesses need help making their products more affordable as consumers avoid shopping locally primarily due to price and ease of access.
Uber, Paypal, Venmo, and others are all also trying to find ways to have similar impact at a local level by bringing local restaurants front and center and partnering with local businesses so payment services can be used at farmers’ markets and replace traditional payment methods in stores.
Furthermore, Google via Google Maps - while not explicitly throwing its hat in the ring - has been slowly becoming a Super App under our noses for a while now. Using Google Maps, users can search and book hotels, get tickets to popular attractions, hail an Uber, make reservations via OpenTable and other services, DoorDash some food over, book a flight, and contact nearby services.
As things stand now, it’s too early to know if there is a true front runner in this space or if Super Apps will ever be able to ascend to the same level in the U.S. and Europe as they have throughout Asia. This is in part due to stricter privacy laws that make it more expensive and difficult for companies to protect the massive amounts of data provided by a Super App and the fierce competition that companies face to add and maintain users.
That being said, the route to Super may be tougher for apps in the U.S. but there remains tons of incentive to develop one with $143 billion spent through apps last year alone. As all of these apps mentioned above and more continue to add other services through their own app, we get a step closer to its actual development and since companies so clearly want to be the WeChat of the U.S., it is worth investors keeping tabs on these developments. The more integrations they have, the closer they are and the more you should take their bid to become a Super App seriously.
For now, it’s a very speculative space. But any acquisition or update that is well received could be pivotal in that company’s race to create the software that runs our lives.
