Name: What is a super app, and why haven’t they gone global? | CNBC Explains
Uploaded: 2021-07-16T19:35:25.000Z
Duration: 12 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The imperative

Yup, there's an app for just about anything.

Past simple

It was a revolutionary concept at the time.

But instead of switching between several different mobile apps, what if there was a one-stop

Well, it already exist, and it's called the 'super app.'

If you're living in China, I'd love to see someone who doesn't use a WeChat or

So, what's the story behind the most successful super apps and how did they become so popular?

In the first quarter of this year, there were more than 3.4 million apps on the Google Play Store

Out of this, there are only a handful of super apps, but they have taken Asian markets by storm.

And nothing happens in the world of super apps without CNBC technology correspondent

He's based in our bureau in Guangzhou, China, so we caught up via video call.

Before that, I wanted to ask you how many super apps do you have installed right now?

You're based in China, so you can't really escape super apps, right?

So, in your definition, what is a super app?

When you've got a single app, and in that app, there's a ton of services that you can access.

It's got that utility for day-to-day life, but also all these other things you might

It's a bunch of services, right, that are not necessarily related to each other, but

Some notable examples include China's WeChat and AliPay, India's Paytm, Singapore's

Grab, Indonesia's GoTo, Vietnam's Zalo and South Korea's Kakao.

It usually starts off with one service, like ride-hailing or messaging, before evolving

to include other services such as food delivery, digital payment, gaming, travel booking, bill

payments, mobile phone top-ups, music streaming, social networking, and the list goes on.

What these companies have managed to do is rack up huge user bases by dominating their market.

And that's been very key for their success.

Grab operates in 8 countries, including Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Singaporean start-up serves more than 187 million users in over 350 cities.

Meanwhile, GoTo Group, comprising Gojek and Tokopedia, is Indonesia's most valuable

tech company, contributing 2% to the country's $1 trillion GDP.

India's biggest startup Paytm has over 350 million users signed up to their digital payments

service, and it's also a fully licensed digital bank.

And South Korea's Kakao has around 87% of the country's total population on its messaging

platform, meaning that almost everyone uses the chat app.

Some of these countries have young generations, very digital savvy.

They're willing to just go straight to phones, digital-savvy, they want digital products.

And that's something I think you'll see in other parts of the world as well.

China, pretty much jumped straight into mobile quite quickly and so, the internet was developing

Manufacturers here were making quite high quality, but low-priced smartphones,

that's been pretty key for the development of the super apps.

China is very, very advanced when it comes to digital payments.

You can go to a very tiny village somewhere, and someone's going to accept AliPay and WeChat Pay.

But a super app also isn't a one-size-fits-all concept.

What's successful in one country might not be successful in another.

Often, I guess it starts with a simple product, or a single product, you know, whether it's

What I think is the key though, is for these super app developers to localize their app.

A lot of people in Indonesia, they can't afford cell phones, right?

So, when Gojek first started out there, they gave an incentive for their driver-partners

to sign on with them by giving them loans to purchase smartphones.

That's a great example you just gave there of localization, of understanding your market.

Localization also means understanding the traffic conditions, understanding how transport

You know, you can't just bring the China model everywhere else, or you can't just

bring the Singapore or Southeast Asian model everywhere else.

The popularity of super apps is not just limited to Asia.

The model is also spreading in places like Latin America and Africa.

What we're seeing in other countries as well, particularly some of the developing markets,

is their internet penetration is going to continue to grow.

There may still be somewhat of a digital gap in some of these countries, but as they continue

to grow, there are cheap smartphones now on the market as well, a lot of them from

The user base of smartphones will grow, the population connected to the internet will

grow, and that will sort of help along with some of the growth of super apps, as well.

According to a global report, China and India have the most cell phone users in the world,

with Indonesia and Japan among the Asian countries featured in the top ten.

How come super apps have done so remarkably well in Asian markets, but we don't see

super apps gaining traction in European markets, or even American markets?

Obviously China is unique in the sense that things like WhatsApp, Signal, Twitter, Facebook,

So that obviously cuts out a huge amount of competition out of the way.

The other point to make here is regulation.

In China, for a long time, these tech companies have grown to giants, unencumbered broadly

Now that's not to say, for example, that the Chinese population does not care about

What it is, is there hasn't really been the regulation and laws to govern data, to

govern privacy, whereas, Europe, very strong on the General Data Protection Regulation,

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What is a super app, and why haven’t they gone global? | CNBC Explains

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