Synopsis: According to insiders, the super app will be coupled with Facebook-owned WhatsApp, similar to WeChat, China’s most successful social commerce platform with over 1 billion users.
Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani, is apparently trying to create a super app by combining the features of local search engine Just Dial, which it just purchased, in order to become the number one player in the e-commerce industry.
According to the Economic Times, which cited executives, it now offers Jiomart for online grocery retail and through its mobile application App, My Jio.
The one-stop super app is anticipated to be a marketplace of services and offerings, offered via in-house technology and third-party connections.
The product’s final contours are being refined, and it will be launched as soon as the government clarifies its e-commerce policy, according to the persons listed above. Last month, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) paid Rs 3,497 crore for a majority share in JustDial.
The product’s final contours are being refined, and the super app will be released as soon as the government clarifies its e-commerce policy. Reliance is investing several thousand crores of rupees on its e-commerce strategy, with the goal of beating out the competition and becoming the market’s No. 1 player.
According to executives close to Reliance Industries, the conglomerate has made it clear that it needs to reach consumers for all of their product and service needs “Super app is just a fancy term.
Whatever one calls it, it is about touching consumers and meeting their every single requirement, ” the publication quoted an anonymous executive as saying.
“Nothing is done ad-hoc in terms of planning or strategy to access consumers. Jio had begun the journey years back with telecom and is now scaling it up and tapping every route that accesses consumers.”
Another executive told the Economic Times, “The directive is clear that Reliance should be the number one player in the e-commerce space and acquisitions and partnerships have been long planned to achieve that. We are investing accordingly.”
Top officials familiar with the situation said Reliance is investing several thousand crores of rupees in its e-commerce plan, with a clear mandate to beat Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart to the top spot.
WeChat, a Chinese super-app, was formally shut down in India in July 2020 after the country banned it due to privacy concerns.
“Reliance has been aggressive with the growth of communications and retail businesses, and their partnerships and acquisitions are consistent with the move to build the overarching bridge presence of the dominant super app,” Devangshu Dutta, the CEO of consulting business Third Eyesight, was reported in the financial daily as saying.
Reliance has produced over 20 consumer apps under its umbrella app MyJio, in addition to being a cellular company.
“While the app acts as an access point to other Jio apps, it is predominantly used mainly for recharges. In our view, the app does not yet have a strong value proposition that every customer would use.
Over time, if two to three of these apps gain traction, then RIL has the potential of creating a similar impact that of a super app,” said a recent report by BofA Securities.
“However, the traction would be similar to that shown by Google in the US – where apps like YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, etc. are standalone apps.”
However, according to the survey, none of the Indian IT companies has yet reached the level of super app development that China and ASEAN applications have, and that Indian enterprises are still some way off – both in terms of customer value proposition and MOAT in the fiercely competitive Indian market.
Ambani also just revealed a set of testing connectors between WhatsApp and JioMart. “Our joint teams are actively developing the full new commerce solution, linking merchants and consumers, and we plan to progressively launch these over the next few quarters,” he had said.
