As Tatas launch their super-app, a look at India Inc’s next battleground

The Tata Group launched its super-app ‘Neu’ on April 7 as part of its plan to take on Amazon and Jio Platforms amid the rapid growth in the consumer digital economy space.

Currently open for only Tata Group employees, the app brings together a range of services on one platform.

What’s on Neu?

The Tata super-app allows users to book hotels associated with the Taj, and buy AirAsia tickets, products through Tata Croma, and beauty and luxury products with Tata Cliq. Users can manage their Tata Sky subscription through Neu, and buy groceries from Big Basket and medicines from Tata 1mg.

Users will also be able to send money directly via bank accounts using Tata Pay UPI.

Each brand on Tata Neu is connected by a common reward called NeuCoins, which can be earned across all brands online and at physical locations. The app will later have two more brands — Air India and Vistara — on the platform.

What’s a ‘super-app’?

A super-app — a term coined by BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis in 2010 – is a one-stop virtual platform that offers diverse products and services under one umbrella. These include marketplaces, ride hailing, food delivery, financial services, online messaging, social media, utilities. 

The best examples of a super-app are Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay, which offer the convenience of a single app for any product or service a customer may need on a daily basis.

Outside China, two super-apps have emerged from leading ride-hailing platforms: Indonesia’s Go-Jek and Singapore’s Grab, which now offer a range of other services. “The most sophisticated apps like WeChat and Alipay in China bundle together online messaging, social media, marketplaces and services. One app, one sign-in, one user experience,” KPMG’s Andrew Huang and Mitch Siegel say in a report.

Super-apps will cover at least 40-50 per cent of the online transactions made by a large customer segment, according to some estimates.

Growing market

India’s booming consumer digital economy is expected to be worth $800 billion by 2030, of which online retail will be a large slice, according to a report by strategy consultants RedSeer.

The online retail market is likely to grow to $350 billion in gross merchandise value — the value of goods sold on a platform, barring discounts and returns — over the next decade from $55 billion this year. No consumer company can afford to miss this pie. According to an Ericsson Mobility Report, India already has 810 million smartphone subscriptions, which will drive app usage.

Leading the charge

Some of India’s biggest conglomerates, etailers, banks and aggregators are planning to develop super-apps to deliver an all-inclusive digital experience to consumers with an eye on their loyalty — and spending power.

Reliance Industries, Adani Group, Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm have all made a move in this direction. Even large banks such as the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank see it as a natural extension of their businesses.

Tata Group is only the latest entrant. Expect many more players in future.

Challenges ahead

Building a super-app requires heavy investments, partnerships and collaborations. It takes at least a decade to build a super-app into a considerable size.

According to analysts, any large business can build a version of the super-app, but in the end, probably one or two will be successful. Execution at scale is key to how a super-app will unfold, so conglomerates such as Reliance and the Tata Group will have an edge over others.