Super apps in India: How do the competitors stack up?

Until late 2019, India was blissfully unaware of the concept of a “super app”. Unlike the Chinese’s reliance on WeChat, a super app where users can chat, make payments, book cabs, shop and order food, Indians would open different apps for such needs.

But over the course of a tumultuous year marred by the Covid-19 pandemic, super apps became the buzzword in India. Many experts and media reports suggested that in 2021, the race for super apps in the country will reach fever pitch.

To be sure, India doesn’t have a super app that’s within the league of WeChat yet. The closest super app for Indian users is the Alibaba-backed Paytm, which offers users the ability to make digital transactions, shop, buy flight and entertainment tickets, purchase insurance, and several other similar services.

But with the adoption of digital services seeing an acceleration owing to the pandemic, two of India’s largest conglomerates, Tata Group and Reliance Industries Limited, have stepped up efforts to launch their own super apps and gain an early advantage.

Specifically, the Tata Group took advantage of the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns to line up acquisitions and fit the missing pieces of its super-app puzzle.

According to reports, it is in talks to buy online grocery app BigBasket and online pharmacy 1mg. There were even rumors of Tata Group being in talks with online shopping platform Flipkart’s parent company Walmart Inc. for a US$20 to US$25 billion investment in the platform.

Reliance Industries Limited, led by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, on the other hand, took significant steps to reign supreme in India’s super-app race.

Its subsidiary Jio Platforms, which already offers a bevy of digital services including payments, online grocery, and shopping, raised US$20 billion during the pandemic from marquee investors such as Facebook, KKR, General Atlantic, and the sovereign wealth funds of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as well as several others.

Reliance also bought an online pharmacy app called Netmeds and shored up its grocery retail plans through its acquisition of Future Retail Limited. The latter is under dispute, however, as it has been in an arbitration forum over its dispute with Amazon in both Singaporean and Indian courts.

Amazon, whose India specific app had 84.72 million monthly active users in March 2020, offers enough services to be called a super app. However, the company has not yet claimed to be creating a super app.

Strengths of the key players

Paytm, which has already been hailed as India’s first super app even though it lacks services such as ride hailing, food delivery, and online groceries, is the obvious leader in the race. According to the latest publicly available data from SimilarWeb, the app had 85.49 million monthly active users in March 2020.

However, despite its existing user base, Paytm is by no means immune to the threats posed by Tata Group and Reliance.

Tata Group’s key strengths in the super-app race are its bevy of consumer-facing brands that include grocery items, fashion brands, and electronics brands.

Possible areas for partnerships

Credits