Super App Development – A Guide To All In One App

Today we have China’s WeChat, Alipay, Baidu, Vietnam’s fintech firm MoMo and many of India’s successful offerings with Reliance Jio and Paytm. And soon, there will be Tata, SBI, Flipkart, PhonePe, Zee5, and who knows how many big brands will come around in the coming years. For now, everyone is eagerly awaiting Tata Neu, an all-in-one developed by the Tata Group. It is a platform that offers many services under one hood, like the need to book a flight ticket, head to TataNeu, want to buy groceries, heads to Tata Neu, and order on BigBasket (Tata purchased 64% stakes last year). Want to shop online, go to Tata Neu and shop on Tata Cliq, need to book a hotel at Taj Hotels, pay for Tata Play TV services, or order online food on Qmin, launched by Tata? You get everything at Tata New. After all, it is a one-stop shop for many benefits offered by a multinational conglomerate. 

Today most developing economies are turning mobile-first; however, smartphones have limited memory and storage. And that’s Super apps are a great option as these apps take up lesser storage and memory, hence a perfect idea instead of having multiple apps installed on the device for different needs. So with increasing digitization levels, greater affordability of smartphones, and users’ preference for digital, super apps are being greatly embraced for their utility.

Top Super Apps For Android & iOS

These are the super apps that are immensely popular in India and USA.

1. MyJio

Soon, the Reliance MyJio is launching its super soon, offering more than 100 services in a single app. This app enables users to order goods and services and make payments using in-app payment services. Only recently, Reliance Jio made a $5.7 billion deal with Facebook to begin its journey towards a super app.

2. Paytm Pvt Ltd: Payments SuperApp

This brand is now expanding into multiple businesses offering various services like ticket booking, bill payment, shopping, etc. It will make it capable of being at loggerheads with Grab (Singapore) and GoJek (Indonesia). The merchant base of these apps grew to 21.1 million in the fiscal year 2021 from 16.3 million in the fiscal year 2020.

3. Gojek App

It is a big name in Indonesia with an on-demand territory across Southeast Asia. This single app is used to order food, make payments, community, taxi-sharing, shopping, hyper-local delivery, and many other services. Their payment platform, GoPay, processes a gross transaction of $6.3 billion annually. 

4. Rappi App

This popular super app platform in Latin America, Rappi is a valuable startup worth $3.5 billion. It started with offering food delivery, and now it has ventured into many other services, like P2P transfer, e-scooter, movie tickets, and many more. The app also allows access to live concerts, playing video games, and listening to music streaming. 

5. Tata Neu App

The Tata Group has forayed into the super app domain, as, for the first time, it has brought together its separate offerings under singlehood. As per the chairman of Tata Sons, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, ‘This super-app comes with a lot of apps in apps, and so on… We have a huge opportunity.” Tata Group and Walmart Inc are even discussing a $25 billion investment in their super app.

Understanding The Concept Of Super App

With super apps, the users get a single platform for various products & services. With super apps, businesses build a tech ecosystem that allows users to save a lot of time and effort, and they do not require using different apps for a variety of services. 

Super Apps are mobile apps offering various services via a single app, known as a Super app. The app is like a virtual mall that provides retail space to other online businesses & shops to sell their products and services. 

Super app development offerings allow you to conglomerate almost all the primary app-based services into a single solution. Thus, the users get flight & hotel booking, social media, gaming, online grocery shopping, digital payments, & much more with just one app. If you are willing to move in the sphere of super apps, all you need is to find a reputable super app development firm to develop an app that can drive customer engagement and boost revenues. 

Why Must Big Brands Own A Super App?

The concept of Super Apps is best suited for big brands, as these apps demand more infrastructure, time, funds, customers, and resources than most other apps. Big brands are well-resourced, so they can easily tackle such a project. And super apps can benefit the big brands in several ways, such as: 

1. A Secure Big Chunk In Digital Offerings

With super apps, big brands get to meet customers within their preferred digital locations, which secures them a massive share of digital revenue tied to the customers.

2. Priceless Wealth Of User Data

Super apps can generate a massive amount of data from across services. Brands can use analytics as a key to enhance customer experiences and track consumer habits to create an effective marketing strategy accordingly. These apps not only have across to an unprecedented sum of consumer data, but they know how to use that data to deliver a better customer experience. This data is even helpful to boost operational processes, such as social media & transactional data to risk-assess loan applicants and target the financial products to customers when they need them. After all, it is known that traditional banks with siloed data and mainframe technology estates are struggling to get a good view of their customers. 

3. It Saves Users Time & Effort

With a single app to meet multiple service needs, customers’ time and efforts are respected, and they appreciate it. After all, you help them save something more valuable than money, i.e., their time. Hence, by keeping customers happy, you keep the profits going up.

4. Retain Existing Customers

Super app offers an excellent possibility for businesses to retain customers. After all, instead of installing various apps to avail of their services or products, customers are at a single platform that offers seamless experiences keeping users engaged. 

Are Super Apps Profit-Making Mobile Apps?

These apps are convenient to use. Hence super apps like Amazon and Gojek reduce the challenges faced with multiple apps. The user can install one app and get all services under a single hood, saving time and phone storage. Cashless transactions are easier, as the users need to sign-up. China’s WeChat leveraged this feature to gain enormous success. 

Super apps offer its customer a ball-point view of services at their fingertips, and owing to these functionalities, the apps earn considerable revenue. The awesome app sales total USD 6 billion in the USA itself. So, if you succeed in making a mark in this domain, there is undoubtedly great ROI. 

Challenges Faced In Developing A Super Apps

As discussed above, Super Apps are best suited for big brands because the development and implementation process can be pretty challenging with such an app. And here, we discuss a few challenges you might have to face while developing a Super App: 

The development of the Super app can be a time-consuming process; after all, it is a lot of apps in one app so the development process will consume a lot of time, effort, and a lot of money. Hence, if you consider coming up with such an app, be prepared that it will take up a lot of time. 

1. Super Apps Are Super Expensive

The reason super apps are mainly ideal for big businesses is that they will take up a lot of money and resources, and usually, now big names can afford them. Developing a super app is not so simple and certainly not so cheap, and they are called super apps for a reason. 

2. Requires Super-Efficient IT Infrastructure

It is not just a lot of time and tons of money needed to create a super app, but it is crucial to have a super-efficient IT infrastructure. Without it, the business will fail sooner or later. It is easier to step in and mark a mark in the arena of super apps; hence, ensure that you have it before stepping into this domain.

3. Mammoth Size API Integrations

Now, it is an enormous app, so there is no denying that the API integrations will be gigantic. Many apps within one app will require a competent IT team to handle the APIs and third-party integrations. 

4. Require A Skilled & Proficient Development Team

The choice of app development company dramatically determines the success of your app. To handle the development process of a Super app, you require a highly competent and experienced development team, so decide on the choice of app development company very carefully.

5. Need Robust User Authentication

As the super app is a huge app, it gives utmost importance to user authentication and ensures that it is robust. After all, the security of your app will significantly depend on the user authentication functionality. 

6. UX/UI Design Can Be Challenging

With super apps having many apps in one place, developing their UX and UI design can be tricky. Ensure that you have expert and experienced UX and UI designers in your app development team who can handle the enormous work of designing a super app.

7. Legal Complication With The Gov Regulation Body

When a super app is created, many businesses come together to make this app. There can be certain legal complications you might face with a government regulatory body. You can easily tackle this challenge by hiring a good legal advisor to help you at every step of the app development process.

How To Monetize Your Super App? 

With this new trend of using multiple apps, you must be wondering about the ways to monetize such apps.

Here’s how:

1. By Introducing A Credit System

Consider introducing a credit system to the consumers, agents, and service provider merchants.

2. Allowing Cross-Border Payment

This monetization method establishes trust factors for the consumers and business owners.  

3. Rewards & Loyalty Programs

These can be pivotal in building lasting customer relationships.

4. Advertisements

Consider running advertisements inside the super app to get more online traffic to generate revenues.

5. Making Commissions

Your business can make transactions for in-app purchases.

How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Super Mobile App?

The cost of developing a super app depends on several factors, such as App Design, App complexity, Development Time taken, Type of Features, etc. These factors play a crucial role in determining the app’s development cost. However, to give a rough estimate, if you are considering developing an average app with basic features. A single platform can cost around $30K to $100K, whereas if you desire to create a great app with unique features for more than one platform, it can cost around $70K-$150K.

What Is The Future Of Super Mobile App?

The future of super apps is very bright, and you need to be well-armored before embarking on the super app journey, and the victory will be yours certainly. That being said, as Super apps provide multiple services and not all of them are provided by the same manufacturer, mostly from third parties, you must give attention to delivering a seamless servicing platform. It won’t be wrong to say that the success mantra is creating sustainable long-term business partnerships. You must be able to create compelling value propositions for partners and consumers, and once that is attained, long-term success is guaranteed.