Contxto – It was a long time coming, but Rappi admitted it at last. The Colombian startup acknowledged it wants to become a super app.
In an interview with BAE Negocios, Rappi’s General Manager for Argentina and Uruguay, Matías Casoy made the unicorn’s intentions clear.
“We want to cease being a delivery app and become a super app,” said Casoy. “The sky’s the limit when it comes to the services we can add. The idea is that when people need something, they think of Rappi.”
For such a purpose they’ve already released a travel agency feature for users in Colombia, so they can book their hotels and flights straight from the app. It’s also hired personal shoppers to do the groceries, much like what Chilean/Mexican Cornershop‘s model.
And in 2020, users can expect to find more perks on the app like buying event tickets and even a marketplace feature to sell goods, like Mercado Libre does.
Victor Cortés, you called it!
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Super app
What is a super app? It’s basically a one-stop place to find anything and everything a consumer might need. This is made possible by integrating multiple services with partners onto a single platform.
The logic behind this is that rather than having 10 different apps to consume various products and services, just find it all in one.
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It worked in Asia, can it work in Latin America?
In Asia, this super app stuff isn’t groundbreaking. In China, there’s WeChat. From Indonesia, Gojek arose. There’s Grab from Singapore that also wants to be a super app.
Through WeChat for example, a person can talk to friends, make payments, play games, take out a loan, call a cab, get movie tickets, the list is endless. Needless to say, in the Chinese market it’s a smash hit.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing like it in Latin America. But, with all these additions Rappi is the forefront contender for the title. More so considering it has its US$1 billion investment backing from SoftBank to fuel its ambitions.
It will prove interesting to see how all of this plays out with Rappi’s intention to achieve profitability.
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-ML
