Think about the apps you use on your phone every day. Research shows that Americans use an average of 46 mobile apps each month to complete a variety of everyday tasks.
Now imagine if you can combine all of these programs into a single standalone app. A one-stop shop for hanging out with friends, ordering food, paying rent, or even consulting with a doctor known as the “super app.”
“We’re committed to providing a range of services to our customers,” said Arjun Kharpal, senior technology reporter at CNBC. “And the appeal of Super Apps is that all the features of these apps are located in the Super Apps themselves. That’s convenient and frictionless.”
Perhaps the most prominent example of a super app is Tencent’s WeChat. It began as a simple messaging app in China in 2011 and today boasts over 1.3 billion active users per month. The popularity of such apps can be attributed to several factors, including convenience, seamless user experience, and user behavior. Super apps are flourishing in Asia, but adoption in Western markets, including the US, has been slower for a variety of reasons.
“The US regulatory environment today doesn’t help allow for the development of super apps,” says Dan Prud Hom, an assistant professor at the College of Business at Florida International University. “There are very strong protections, such as peer-to-peer lending, data privacy, anti-trust and more, such as US apps not thriving the same way WeChat can.”
But things may be beginning to change. In recent years, more and more tech companies have been turning their attention to bringing super app models to the US
Watch the video to find out what’s behind the appeal of Asian super apps, why the US is slow to adopt “all apps” models, and whether you can expect super apps in the US soon.
