A 2017 study by App Annie found that the average American used nine or 10 apps per day and about 30 per month. Yet most have between 60 and 90 apps installed on their smartphones.
We’re not sure what is the upper limit of a consumer’s capacity for regular daily app use. But we imagine it’s not much higher than nine or 10. And that explains as well as anything why so many players are tossing around the word super app.
If your app delivers messaging, payments, ride-hailing, food delivery, or some other high use frequency activity, then you are probably in the race to build a super app.
Just imagine. if you add pizza, dating, online banking, crypto trading, etc., then suddenly your app has crowded out three or four other apps on the iPhone deck. That engagement, once fragmented across multiple apps, is now all yours. And so, of course, is the monetization that comes with it.
This is what we wrote last year, when predicting 2022 would be the “year of the super app”.
Of course, China’s WeChat is the OG super app. In Beijing, all you need when you walk outside is your phone and WeChat. It covers everything from ordering and paying for dinner to unlocking your front door to swiping for a late-night hookup (good luck, buddy).
In emerging markets, high data costs are a key incentive to create super apps. In the West, the case is more about convenience and user experience. Why toggle among several apps when one can do it all? Or at least most of it.
Enter Uber Explore
Uber is an obvious super app contender. After all, it’s already among the leaders in two major categories. Ride-hailing and food delivery. And yesterday, it made an announcement that makes it very clear that it plans to join the race to become one of the world’s leading super apps.
Uber announced a new product called Uber Explore that clearly inches the company into the super app sweepstakes. The company describes Explore as “a new product in the Uber app that will allow customers to browse and book experiences – including dinner reservations, live events, and other fun activities.”
Explore integrates the ride-hailing experience with the discovery of things to do. The feature uses your past destinations to recommend things to do. There is also one-click ride-hailing (called “ride there now”) to pre-populated designations. And Uber Offers provides 15% off rides to top destinations (with a $10 cap). Explore also includes reviews, photos, and directions to add to the discovery experience.
This wouldn’t be a super app play without a seamless payments component. Users can now book tickets to events and experiences using the same Uber Wallet you use to pay for rides.
Explore is currently live in 14 U.S. cities, plus Mexico City. And the company says it plans to launch in more markets in the coming weeks.
it may still be soon to declare Uber a super app. However, we don’t think that definition required that an app literally do everything. It just needs to help consumers consolidate their personal app stack by consolidating what was done by say, four or five apps into one. Explore is a clear nod in this direction.
We expect to see a lot more super app moves in the coming weeks and months from players like Block (Square and CashApp), Snap, Paypay, and the countless others who are in a position to march incrementally toward super app status simply by adding adjacent solutions and integrating them seamlessly.
