Super Apps: Revolutionizing Mobile Experience and Business Ecosystems
China super apps can integrate and replace multiple apps for customer or employee use and support a composable business ecosystem. Super apps are like Swiss army knives, a suite of component tools that users can use and remove as needed. Super apps are popular because users, especially millennials born in the smartphone era, want a powerful and easy-to-use mobile user experience.
What is a Super App
Super apps are more than just composite mobile apps. They are a platform that provides modular micro-apps that users can activate for a personalized app experience. Super Apps are the front end of a platform where in-house developers and third parties can publish micro apps.
What Super Apps Offer
A super app is a program that provides end users with a core set of functionality and access to independently created micro apps. Super Apps are built as a platform to provide an ecosystem of micro apps that users can choose to activate for a consistent and personalized app experience. Micro-apps do not have a separate app store or marketplace. They are discovered and activated by the SuperApp user and can also be easily removed from the user interface.
How Super Apps Work
Users access a range of discrete services through an ecosystem for which internal development teams and external partners build modular micro-apps and deploy them to the SuperApp. This ecosystem of vendors also amplifies the value of super apps by providing easy access to a wider range of services within the application. Many technology vendors already provide tools and platforms that help software engineering leaders build super apps.
The Case for Super Apps
China super apps were the first to emerge and spread to Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. WeChat and Alipay are typical China super apps. Super apps have entered the market in India, South America, the Middle East, and Africa. Industries such as financial services, retail, healthcare, and telecommunications are adopting super apps to gain a competitive edge.
In short, super apps have a promising future. It can help realize economies of scale and leverage the network effect of a larger user base and multiple providers. Organizations can create super apps to integrate multiple mobile apps or related services to reduce friction and development efforts for user experience. Super apps can provide a more engaging experience for their customers, partners, or employees.