The Musk-Twitter saga has come to a surprising end. Tesla chief Elon Musk has agreed to move forward with his original plan to buy social networking platform Twitter bringing an end to the legal battle. Twitter alleged that the 51-year-old billionaire was anxious about footing the hefty bill for purchasing the platform during a downturn in the tech share market. Even if there was any truth to that argument, Musk did have ideas for the app. 

On October 5th, he tweeted, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” This isn’t the first time Musk has teased the concept of an everything app – a superapp. In an appearance on the All-In Podcast in May, when asked what his version of Twitter would look like, he gushed about China’s WeChat. “WeChat is a good model — and basically includes functions of Twitter, PayPal and many others. It is an excellent app, we don’t have anything like it outside of China,” he said. 

Lack of a superapp in the US

Text messages between Musk and his advisers, revealed during the course of his lawsuit, also revealed his desire to create a copycat of the Tencent app. In a message sent to his brother Kimbal, Musk said that he had an idea for a “blockchain social media system that does both payments and short texts or links like Twitter”. Interested users would have to pay a small amount to register their message on the chain. This would secure the platform and “cut out a vast majority of spam and bots”. 

Noting the lack of a WeChat counterpart in the US, he added, “You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so helpful, so useful to daily life. I think if we achieve that or come even close to that with Twitter, that would be a success.” 

Launched in 2011 as a messaging app, WeChat grew to function as a hybrid between platforms like WhatsApp, Uber and eBay. With more than a billion monthly active users, the app supports voice calls, video calls, features with real-time location sharing and posting stories a la Instagram. WeChat also has an option that allows users to make international calls with a localisation feature that translates messages into 20 different languages. 

A potential trillion $ company

Significantly, superapps aren’t as pervasive in the West as in Asia. In China, apps like WeChat and Alipay (which combines payments, food delivery services, loans and banking) were popular due to the rise of cheaper phones with limited storage. Since Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba were bound by the number of apps that could be downloaded, a bunch of ‘superapps’ sprung up. These apps were convenient for users to switch between rather than complicated interfaces. 

While other tech giants have tried to chase the superapp dream, none has been as successful as WeChat. Uber, whose food delivery business UberEats has become a gold mine for the ride-hailing company, has brought back its businesses to its main app after splitting them in the past. 

Social media platform, Snapchat also opened up its app in 2020 and allowed developers to run trials for gaming inside its messaging app. (Coincidentally, Tencent is also a prominent investor in Snapchat). PayPal too has transformed itself from a single button payment processing middleman into an umbrella payment platform. The all-in-one app integrates its e-commerce business, financial services and payment services now all under one platform. The app has also expanded to include cryptocurrency investment which draws in more customer engagement. 

There is a reason for Musk’s interest in superapps. WeChat generated around USD 17.5 billion in revenue last year through advertising and digital services. Neighbouring Asian countries like Singapore’s Grab and Indonesia’s Gojek have been successful in pursuing the same route. 

It’s a superapp war in India

The superapp bug has also bitten India’s most popular services with conglomerates like Tata and Reliance making acquisitions to stay in the race. New entrants like Tata Neu want to become a one-stop shop for users to book tickets, shop online and buy groceries while Reliance already has its JioMart. 

Paytm, which is backed by Alibaba, also acts like a payment platform now with financial investment services, option to book flights, movie tickets and online games, banking and consumer finance. Applications like Truecaller, which is mainly an app to screen strangers, later added four features, including texting, recording phone calls and mobile payment. 

PhonePe, owned by Flipkart, also has a bunch of mini apps under one platform. Some of those include ride-hailing service Ola, hotel booking service Oyo and travel booking service MakeMyTrip. 

Regulatory concerns

But even with all the ingredients to make superapps successful, regulatory issues continue to rear their head. Superapps operate on a treasure trove of data which raises concerns about their management and security. There are several other legal issues that these apps find themselves entangled in. According to section 101 of the Consumer Protection Act, “parties cannot sell their products on the same marketplace”. This would mean that Tata’s e-commerce platform Blinkit cannot sell Tata Salt and neither can Reliance sell its own retail products on JioMart. 

These concerns in India only multiply manifold in the US. Congress has been quick to pull up tech giants as soon as they start wielding more power. A superapp in this scenario would be the perfect red flag to raise the alarms around data collection and handling. It is unlikely that in the current environment, the rise of a superapp will be seen as trustworthy.