Sheldon Anthony IO

Superapps are the ultimate digital Swiss army knife that lets you do everything from ordering food to paying bills in one app. They are changing the way we communicate, shop, and live online. They are applications that offer a range of services and features, from messaging and payment to entertainment and e-commerce, in a single platform. Users can customize their Superapp experience by selecting and installing mini-apps that suit their needs and preferences. In this blog post, we will explore how business owners can get the essential mix right with free usability, paid services, and rewards.

As a business owner, you need to make sure your users are happy, loyal, and willing to pay. You need to offer them a smooth and simple experience that solves their problems. You also need to offer them extra features that they can’t find elsewhere. And you need to reward them for using your app more often and for more things. That’s the challenge of finding the right mix of free usability, paid services, and rewards in a super app. If you get it right, you can grow your user base, revenue, and reputation. If you get it wrong, you can lose users, money, and trust.

Grab is a Singapore-based superapp that offers a range of services in Southeast Asia, such as ride-hailing, food delivery, e-commerce, entertainment, social media, messaging, and payments. Grab was founded in 2012 as a taxi-booking app and has since expanded its offerings to become the region’s leading superapp with over 200 million users and 9 million partners across eight countries. Grab faced several challenges in its journey to become a superapp. They faced challenges like competing with other players in the fragmented and diverse Southeast Asian market, such as Gojek, Uber, Foodpanda, Lazada, and Shopee. They had to build trust and loyalty among users and partners who have different needs, preferences, and behaviors across different countries and cultures. They are had to start innovating and adapting to the changing needs and expectations of users and partners in the fast-growing digital economy. They leveraged their core competency in ride-hailing to expand into adjacent services that complements its existing offerings and created synergies for users and partners. For example, Grab launched GrabFood to leverage its existing network of drivers and riders to deliver food orders, and GrabPay to enable users to pay for their rides and other services within the app. By focusing on localizing its services and solutions to cater to the specific needs and preferences of each market. For example, Grab introduced GrabBike and GrabExpress in Indonesia to offer motorcycle-based ride-hailing and delivery services that are more suitable for the traffic conditions and consumer behavior in the country. Investing in technology and innovation to enhance its platform capabilities and user experience. For example, Grab developed its own map service called GrabMap to improve its location accuracy and routing efficiency, and launched GrabPlatform to enable third-party developers and partners to integrate their services into the Grab app. They became the most downloaded app in Southeast Asia in 2021 according to App Annie. Reaching a valuation of $40 billion in 2021 after announcing a merger with Altimeter Growth Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that will take it public in the US. Serving over 5 billion rides and deliveries, 2 billion digital payments, and 1.5 billion food orders since its inception. Grab is empowering millions of micro-entrepreneurs, small businesses, and social enterprises by providing them with access to income opportunities, financial services, and digital tools.^[1]

Getting the right mix of free usability, paid services, and rewards in a superapp, can generate several advantages for an organization. It can attract and retain more users by offering them convenience, value, and variety in one app without switching to another app. Revenues can be increased by cross-selling and upselling different products and services to the same user base. It can reduce costs by leveraging economies of scale, shared infrastructure, and data synergies across different services and functions. Loyalty can be enhanced by rewarding users for their engagement, referrals, and feedback with incentives such as discounts, cashback, or points. It can also create differentiation by offering unique features, content, or experiences that are not available in other apps.

Market leaders are leveraging the power of superapps to offer free usability, paid services, and rewards in a seamless and personalized way that is driving engagement for their organizations. The free usability services are attracting and retaining users who can access multiple services and features in one app, such as messaging, payments, e-commerce, and social media. The offering of paid services is monetizing their user base and generating revenue from commissions, fees, subscriptions, and advertising. By rewarding users, they are incentivizing them to use the app more frequently and increase their loyalty and satisfaction. For example, they could offer cashback, discounts, coupons, loyalty points, referrals, gamification, and personalization. These strategies are creating a virtuous cycle of value creation and exchange between the superapp and its users and partners.