Superapps

Main article: Mobile applications

2024: Superapps are the future of the world's fintech. Or the past?

For the past 15 years, the world has been taken over by "combine applications," which combine dozens of different functions. This offensive began from Asia, where the super-apps have already won - and faces opposition from companies and officials in the West. Expert Alexei Titov in a column for TAdviser told in February 2024 what super-apps are and what happens to them.

What is a super-up?

When they talk about a "super-app," they usually remember services in China in which you can call a taxi and pay for a purchase. and show a plane ticket, and buy, for example, a multi-ton industrial press. Chinese super-apps have become so widespread in the Celestial Empire and have grown into society so much that it is almost impossible to live without them in the country.

It is interesting that the term itself was invented by the founder of BlackBerry Mike Laraidis 15 years ago. He believed that people do not need dozens of different applications, and all their functions can be combined in one ecosystem.

Super applications usually start with only one service - most often they "grow" from a messenger or taxi rental. Then they develop and other services appear in them: food delivery, digital payments, payment of bills, replenishment of a mobile phone account, audio and video streaming, social networks and forums. In the super-app, you can imagine or see almost any function: up to cryptoinvestment and election voting.

Are super apps really popular?

Yes, quite. The most common super-app in China (let's call it "Yellow") is used by more than 1.2 billion people. Their applications have grown in India, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia.

In 2024, it is almost impossible to pay off the usual in China bank card - all payments are usually accepted in a super-app. China is the world's first cashless. country

The total number of super-app users exceeds 2.5 billion. Most likely, one or two such applications are also on your smartphone. A well-known Russian bank is trying to develop its application in this way, and the largest Russian IT company has been producing super apps for more than 10 years.

Why are they so popular in Asia?

First of all, the so-called "Great Mobile Transition" is to blame for their popularity. In China, and then in India and Southeast Asia, a whole generation of people grew up, the first device for which was a smartphone. More than 80% of smartphone owners in Asia do not have a stationary computer or laptop at all. Therefore, many people simply do not have access to the usual way for us to use sites or services from the desktop.

The "Great Mobile Transition" led to strange phenomena that could not have been imagined 10 years ago. For example, according to data to KFMG, 73% of residents of South and Southeast Asia do not have bank accounts at all - they are simply not needed. A noticeable bank account is a digital wallet in a super-app. Apparently To Africa , the ratio of people without a bank account is even higher.

In China, there are no rules for regulating the capital of users who accumulate super-apps. Therefore, super-apps use funds to invest in overnight funds and place in interest accounts, as well as unregulated P2P lending. Services are not shared From these important data on financial transactions with regulators and do not implement systems to prevent money laundering and other illegal transactions.

Well, and of course in China, super-apps enjoy a lot of government support. Officials helped integrate more than 200 government services into the app. A "yellow" Chinese super-up replaces a citizen with even an ID card.

And what is wrong with Western countries?

In the EU and the US, super apps are really unpopular - and I see no reason for their rapid growth. There are several reasons for this.

Popularity of traditional financial institutions. In countries where most people use the apps of their banks, the super-up loses power - it is seamless payment for services. The financial market in the US and the EU is a "red ocean," and no one will allow some of the positions to be surrendered by integrating with one of the super-apps.

State opposition. Unlike Asian countries, regulatory requirements in the United States and Europe are much stricter - this prevents the emergence of a digital provider in the super-app feed. In addition, antitrust law prevents the merger of well-known technology players in order to protect customers, and GDPR further complicates the aggregation of personal data in Europe.

Data protection. Unlike Asian countries, where people traditionally worry less about the safety of their personal data and privacy. In Germany, for example, concern for data protection is so strong that it even prevents the state from enriching big data on citizens.

Advertisement. In the West, companies mainly make money on advertising, and combining applications into one will reduce income from it. In addition, super apps are unprofitable for large companies that own app stores - the more apps in stores, the more advertising and the higher the revenue.

But the super apps are also not very convenient?

This is true - the sprawling super-apps are more like "their Internet inside the application" than the services we use on a smartphone. In addition to a bloated and overhauled UI, super-apps have problems with stability of operation due to high load. In addition, an attempt to combine dozens of services in one application leads to their division into main and side services - and side services as a result receive noticeably less resources and popularity.

The popular "Blue" social network from the United States was even forced to separate the messenger into a separate application and forcibly limit the possibilities of correspondence with friends in its main application. The reason is the great pressure of the super-app on the infrastructure of the social network. And the most popular search engine in the world even limits resources for the development of new functions in its navigation service. There are too many users, too many requests, and resources are limited, especially in a situation of a shortage of chips.

In Russia, attempts to actively introduce super-apps led to user disappointment. A large bank and a large IT company even began to "expand" their super-apps into separate applications, for each of which it is possible to achieve a cool user experience.

And what happens next?

I believe that soon the super-apps will get to us. On the side of combine applications, first of all, demographic trends work.

On average, younger Americans are more interested in mobile gaming, new social media and other digital services that fit well within super apps, according to research by Gartner. They are also more gullible to big tech companies and less inclined to share their data with those platforms.

As these generations of consumers become more numerous and have more purchasing power, they are likely to drive demand for super apps. At the same time, the "old men" pull themselves up. A Pew Research Center study in 2022 found that Americans over 64 are more interested in using new digital technologies and are more likely to own smartphones than ever before. The report also found that the social media presence of older Americans has roughly quadrupled since 2010.

There's just nothing to be done about it. I think that similar trends can be observed in the EU and in Russia. There are more and more smartphones, people are becoming more and more active.

And people are getting lazier. It becomes more difficult for them to maintain the zoo of applications on their smartphone. Judge on yourself how it is easier for you to buy a plane ticket - in the bank application, with cashback, quick filling of all fields, instant payment? Or it is better to download the airline application, log in, suffer with unusual UX/UI, enter payment data...

It turns out that we will have our own counterparts of the "yellow" Chinese super-app? No, I think it's important to look further. The Chinese super-up appeared as a response to the challenge: people need digital services on smartphones, without banks.

Companies that try (or have already tried to copy Chinese apps) will lose. In our world, where people have many desktops, there is experience in receiving services on the web, there will be a different request for super apps, and they will look different. How? We'll see soon!

But already now I am sure that it will not do without AI. For example, imagine that you don't even need an interface to buy in a super app. You just say in your voice: "Tickets from Istanbul to Phuket, departure tomorrow, by the window, plus luggage" - and the application itself will place an order. I even think that this is a very near future.