The proliferation of low-cost smartphones and cheap mobile data has revolutionized the business in India with various services startups growing rapidly from mobile recharge, bill payments, ticket bookings (Train, Bus or Airplane) and many more services.
Inspired by WeChat
The Chinese Tech giant WeChat which started as a messaging service has become a one-stop solution for various features such as gaming, payments, social commerce, and publishing platform in recent years. WeChat dominates the Chinese market in all ways with an app store of itself which hosts a large number of mini-games to keep its users into the app however, WeChat failed to gain hold in India and everywhere else.
But it’s business model is helping various other service-based companies to grow at a large scale with the addition of other services in the Southeast Asian markets.
With more than 500 million internet users up from around 350 million in mid-2015 and estimated to be surpassing 625 million users by the end of the year is helping many local and global service-based apps to follow this WeChat model in India.
Paytm
Paytm started as a prepaid mobile and DTH recharge platform in 2010 is now India’s leading e-commerce and digital payment service company is heading with the WeChat model adding numerous services to its apps like making payments, booking tickets, purchasing products, and mini-games into the app.
Paytm leads the India market with the highest number of transactions and engagements with its app and the founder of the company believes when you’re having the largest number of transactions then why not disrupt the business of others who have fewer transactions.
“Paytm itself makes money for others and helped to create a business into business” adds Sharma in a talk to TechCrunch.
PhonePe
Flipkart owned PhonePe founded in 2015 as an online payment system based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) currently offers various services integrated to its app from mobile recharge, ticket bookings, hotel bookings, ride-hauling services and more.
PhonePe claims to have around 150 million active users which have amassed in a year and became a popular app for users is following the same WeChat model which Snapdeal tried earlier in the days but failed to make it a success.
TrueCaller
Truecaller, the Sweden based app that started as helping users know about who is calling or messaging them has been expanding its services in India with the addition of messaging, recording phone calls and mobile payments features and the company claims that 100 million out of company’s 140 million daily active users are in India.
Truecaller is also going to add a new service which will let users borrow money from Truecaller like the Paytm Postpaid service and from being a single-functioning app Truecaller is also turning into a multi-functioning app dubbed as Super App.
Amazon
Amazon has a large number of users in India and following from its eCommerce platform the company offers various other payment features like mobile recharge, DTH recharge and much more with its Amazon Pay service.
Last year Amazon acquired the Indian startup Tapzo which offers integration with popular services such as Uber, Ola, Swiggy, and Zomato to grow Amazon Pay’s presence in the country.
Reliance Jio
Reliance Jio, the subsidiary of the Reliance Industry owned by the richest man in India Mr. Mukesh Ambai has bigger plans of entering into the Super Apps club with clubbing more than 100 features to its app.
It is notable how Reliance Jio single-handedly transformed the mobile network industry in India with its low-cost data plans and free voice calls and amassed a large number of users to its various apps to its subscribers for free.
Also Read: Reliance Jio announced Internet of Things
Reliance Jio bought music streaming Saavn last year and integrated it to its Jio Music App. Last month the company acquired startup Haptik that develops conversational platforms and virtual assistants for $100 million. Reliance Jio has a large number of users and it’s already performing at a good rate with its existing apps like JioTV and Jio News.
Times Internet
Times Internet is also one of the big players when it comes to Super App but it works in the entertainment and other industry. Times Internet owns and invests in a large number of services from Cricbuzz, Delhivery, MX Player, Ganna, and many more. Times Internet is proving to be a rival to Google and Facebook in India.
Microsoft has also been providing a large number of services with its SMS Organizer app started as an app that organizes the SMS you receive in a proper way and now it offers checking train schedules within the app and expected to launch some new services soon.
Whatsapp is the most popular messaging app in India and Facebook has developed a UPI based payments feature to Whatsapp but it’s under clearance from Government to roll out all over the country.
Ride-hailing service Ola has also added various new features to its Ola Money App with acquisition and is looking to add some new users with rewards and discounts.
Since its just a start for the Super Apps but the battle to stay at the top is something we have to keep an eye on.
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