Tata Group Plans To Launch ‘Super App’ By End of This Year
24 August,2020
With an aim to take on Amazon and Reliance in country’s booming e-commerce sector, the Tata group has been gearing up for a ‘super app’ play. With this app, Tata group seeks to bring its different consumer services together on one platform. The app is expected to go live by the end of this year or by January 2021.
In a recent conversation with the Financial times, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons quoted “It will be a super app, a lot of apps in apps and so on. . . We have a very big opportunity.” He also said that the super app will be loaded with offerings spanning categories in which Tata has a presence and will eventually include more services like healthcare, food and grocery ordering, insurance and financial services among others
The super app, mainly serves as a one-stop shop for a wide range of products and services. Apart from increased revenue realization, super apps also provide companies, a vast amount of data which can be used to tailor the consumer’s experience.
At present, Tata group operates two e-commerce portals: StarQuik- an online grocery, dairy and meat store currently based in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune & Tata Cliq- that sells consumer electronics online via another platform, Tata Croma. Other consumer firms under Tata group’s umbrella include brands such as Westside, Tata Sampann, Vistara, Tanishq, Zara, Tata sky and Taj hotels.
The concept of ‘super app’ first emerges in China and south-east Asia. Companies like WeChat, GoJek and Grab have bundled together various services on their single platform leveraging their high social media traffic and have enjoyed increased revenue realization.
The move by Tata group to introduce a “super app” seems promising. However it has largely remained silent in its consumer market offerings unlike its competitors. Moreover, players like Reliance Industries already offer numerous services from shopping, content streaming, shopping, payments, messaging, games, cloud services, etc under its Jio umbrella and have a larger consumer base.
