Super Applications: Impact on Users, Business and the Future of Mobile App Development

The construction and development of digital ecosystems — is a new kind of cooperation and competition of large companies waging a war for the attention of users. about ten years ago, a new strategy was born, which today has become central to many, including Russian companies, trying to build their ecosystems. this strategy — creation of super applications.

What is super apps?

In 2010, during his speech at Mobile World Congress, Mike Lazaridis, founder of BlackBerry, introduced the concept of SuperApp — a new class of mobile applications. he said: «you'll be surprised how you once lived without them».

In his mind, super apps — are programs that people use every day like because these apps offer a seamless, integrated, contextual and effective user experience. whatever that means, as we know, BlackBerry didn't do very well in the end.

However, the concept of super apps did not die and was reborn in Southeast Asia after the largest technology startups Wechat, grab and Gojek began to call themselves that way. as a result, it was these companies that popularized the term, turning it into a buzzword.

A super app — is a multitude of applications within one umbrella, solving the user's needs in one place. it is an everyday tool that includes many features and capabilities from social networks to the delivery of goods and financial services

The main goal of super apps — aggregate traffic and keep the user within the same ecosystem, providing a wide range of services on the same platform.

Users receive all services from one window and a personalized approach. companies, in turn, collect a huge amount of data, thanks to which they develop and sell these services. Sometimes a super application allows its customers to use the services of third-party sellers without installing individual applications.

Why is this necessary

Creating a multifunctional application — quite a logical step for Asian and Russian it companies, because they have to compete with such giants as Apple and Google, which distribute their products at the operating system level, where it is much easier for them to establish interaction between different services. without such an opportunity, it is better not to let the user out of your application at all, which is what super apps are actually aiming for. they create a system within the system.

For the user

When companies teach their customers about super apps, the most common advantages they provide are:

• you receive a wide variety of services;

• you get all this variety in one place;

• you save memory on your phone;

• you get convenience and the best service.

Why is this important? today, more than 2.7 million different applications are downloaded from the Google Play app store, and about 1.8 million from the AppStore.

It is known that the average user spends most of his time in 5−7 applications per day. This glut is painful for a market dominated by low Internet speeds and phones with limited memory and computing resources, but there is a high demand for services. This is why super apps are so popular in China, India, Russia and other emerging markets.

Super applications correct this imbalance by running on top of a mobile operating system, they reduce the time it takes to complete a specific task, which in turn increases productivity. for the user, all this becomes a significant competitive advantage.

For business

So that the entire software part can function, super apps accumulate a huge amount of data about you and your actions, based on which they predict your behavior pattern. all in order to correctly recommend the right service at the right time.

However, the data that companies receive from you is important, but not the only reason for the existence of super apps. sooner or later, a business occupies a certain market share, even a massive one, and it becomes more difficult to scale it. In order to attract a new audience, you should increase the list of services that would be interesting to them. super apps cope with this many times more effectively than expanding the line of classic mono-apps.

Super applications are easier to maintain without inflating the development staff, non-core service providers can be attracted, and the synergy from the services used by an increasing number of users has a powerful effect on scaling the business.

There are two different models for creating super applications

Many super apps develop around the root service, adding additional ones to it. this model works due to network effect —the value of a product or service to one user depends on the number of other consumers of that product or service, meaning by expanding the list of services and attracting more users, a company strengthens or transforms its root business. this is true for many applications.

WeChat started with text and voice messaging, today more than a billion monthly users who can chat, buy goods, make money transactions, order a taxi and use the service to verify identity.

A more familiar example — VKontakte. already in the early stages of its existence, the social network gave us the opportunity to read news, communicate and unite in communities, listen to music and watch videos, play games. today Vkontakte aggregates a huge number of services. Through partnerships and attracting new service providers, users were able to call a taxi, order food, look for work, buy goods, and make monetary transactions.

Tinkoff is also following this path. By attracting new services and services, the company is strengthening its core financial product.

Another way — the service closes some area of activity in a person’s life, accumulating the opportunity to solve various situations in this area.

For example, the Grab application mainly solves logistics problems — calling a taxi, food delivery and courier service.

In Russia, Yandex uses this approach. Go — a single application that helps people solve everyday problems in the city quickly and accurately on time. in its superapp, Yandex combines taxi, car sharing and public transport tracking services, complementing them with courier delivery and delivery from Yandex. Food and products from Yandex Shop.

In 2019, Uber announced that it intended to become the first super app in the West.In 2016, the BBC launched the BBC+ super app, where it aggregates its media and content services.

Problems and solutions

However, the growth of functionality within one application cannot be endless, services will inevitably begin to compete with each other, which can lead to «cannibalization».

It’s also worth noting that such applications are quite difficult for unprepared users to understand, and navigation becomes too confusing over time and leads to the fact that many services become difficult to access, the user forgets about them, or stops using them altogether.

Many clients of such services often complain that they do not need such wide functionality and demand simplicity.

There are several behavioral strategies to address these problems

First, to develop machine-learning technologies and personalization algorithms, the same super app can and should look different for each user, and by accumulating and interpreting data about the user, super app adapts to their personal preferences. the app knows when and what services you use more often.

For example, when leaving home in the morning, you are more likely to want to call a taxi to work, order lunch at the office in the afternoon, and take groceries home in the evening based on these preferences, the super apps rearranges the interface so that the focus is on those services that are most relevant in that location and at that point in time.secondly, you need to constantly research and improve the user experience and train your clients. with the help of content (hello stories in Sber), the super app tells you what changes have occurred in the application, what new services have appeared, where the old ones have gone, and how to use them most effectively.

By automating and simplifying internal processes, developers make complex scenarios easier. During the design of these scenarios, it is necessary to provide contextual hints and suggest relevant courses of action, thereby increasing user control over the application.

What to expect in the future

It is obvious that even more super apps await us, tied to a certain area of our lives.

For example, it is not at all difficult to imagine an application that fully accompanies us on our journey from choosing a holiday destination to the moment when you share your impressions with friends and family: planning, purchasing tickets, booking accommodation, booking restaurants, visiting museums and events, excursions and routes, audio guides, schedules, photographs and the best moments.

or an application that takes care of your health. monitors your body's performance, recommends the prevention of seasonal diseases, makes an appointment with the right doctor, makes a virtual appointment, makes it possible to buy the necessary medications and monitors the course of the disease.

The potential of super applications is still very great

More and more companies are launching their super apps, and many more experiments and combinations await us in this area. High competition is always ultimately beneficial for the user, because he receives more and more opportunities and an ever-improving service. For large companies, creating super apps is a reliable strategy for scaling their business and attracting new customers.

Super applications help companies accumulate data and develop their ecosystems: in the future, when the usual way to get the service is not interaction with the graphical interface, but communication with artificial intelligence, this will allow them to remain competitive.