Accidental Super Apps &#8211; Zomato, Swiggy or Zepto
When asked about our favourite apps, most of us would name Zomato, Swiggy, or Zepto. And it’s pretty obvious why. Well, craving food when stressing over the looming possibility of a 14-hour workday is completely justified. But if you think Zomato and Swiggy are just about delivering food or booking tables at fancy restaurants, it’s time to rethink. A YouTuber from the channel Full Disclosure recently interviewed food delivery riders and revealed that some of these riders earn between INR 40,000 and INR 50,000 per month, which is more than the average income of many IT professionals. One rider even mentioned that he managed to save INR 2 lakh in just six months. In another interesting scenario, Venkatesh Gupta, a techie, shared on X a strange encounter. He met a senior Microsoft engineer in Bengaluru driving an auto rickshaw over the weekends to fend off loneliness. Every Social Media Platform is an eCommerce Store Most social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are striving to become e-commerce platforms. Every platform you visit is working hard to enable you to buy things without leaving their site. TikTok, for example, changed its ‘storefront’ to ‘shop’ so you can make purchases directly on the app. No more jumping to other websites. This isn’t just TikTok. YouTube allows creators to sell products in their videos. Pinterest has ‘buyable pins’ so you can shop without leaving the site. Facebook has stores, even on Messenger. Google is also in the game with Google Business. WhatsApp was launched as a one-to-one chat app service in February 2009 and now offers Business Accounts with payment options. WhatsApp for e-commerce allows customers to complete the entire transaction on one app without needing to shift platforms. This can be done by integrating the product catalogue with WhatsApp Business. Customers can then browse products, view prices, and make purchases directly within the WhatsApp interface. Unexpected Chat Apps In recent years, many applications initially designed for specific purposes have added messaging capabilities. When you break up with your boyfriend and think you’ve blocked him everywhere, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, he can still text you on GPay! Instagram, originally a photo-sharing app, now offers direct messaging (DM) to allow users to chat, share media, and even engage in group conversations. It also functions as an app that can make you doubt yourself and give you an inferiority complex (maybe). Coming back to Google Pay, which was initially just a payments app, now includes messaging features to facilitate communication around transactions, share payment details, and more. There’s also Spotify, which allows users to share songs and playlists through integrated messaging services. Super Apps on the Rise In 2022, the global super apps market was valued at a staggering $61.30 billion, with a growth trajectory of 27.8% expected from 2023 to 2030. Gartner’s survey reveals that the top 15 super apps have been downloaded over 4.6 billion times worldwide, boasting 2.68 billion monthly active users. By 2050, it is anticipated that more than half of the global population will be using super apps. Well, the key to their widespread adoption lies in the mobile-first market, where smartphones are the primary connected devices. Another major contributor is their integration of financial and payment services. Paytm in India, Grab in Singapore, Goto in Indonesia, and Zalo in Vietnam are a few examples, each pivoting their user experience around robust financial and banking services. Even apps like Cred, which is the credit card bill payment platform, are joining the UPI payment club competing against Paytm and PhonePe. Earlier ​​Deepinder Goyal, the CEO of Zomato had said that super apps don’t work in India. He would rather have Zomato and Blinkit grow as separate brands. Maybe it’s time to rethink.
If you think Zomato and Swiggy are just about delivering food or booking tables at fancy restaurants, think again.
Most social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are striving to become e-commerce platforms.
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Vidyashree is enthusiastic about investigative journalism. Now trying to explore how AI solves for all.