SUPER-APPIFICATION: CONGLOMERATION IN THE MOBILE ECOSYSTEM

Abstract

“Super apps” are on the rise and gaining popularity worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia, India and Africa. These are “do-everything apps” that offer a wide range of services in a single interface, making them more integrated into people's lives. Super apps thus highlight the organisation, political economy and geopolitics of the platformisation process in the app economy. While most studies on super apps focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian apps, this paper examines super apps from around the world to better understand and discuss the phenomenon. Specifically, it examines and discusses (1) what “super apps” are, (2) by whom they were developed, (3) when they were created or how they evolved over time, and (4) where—in which countries or regions or parts of the world—they emerged. We provide a typology of super-app constellations based on the different characteristics identified in a global collection of 40 super-apps. We discuss the local or regional differences between apps, their historical emergence, modes of capital accumulation and the challenges and implications arising from them for critical research. The rise of super-apps and their integration into people's daily lives in general invites us to delve deeper into the relatedness and situatedness of apps, and focus in particular on the unique conglomeration processes currently taking place in the mobile ecosystem.