Unlocking Growth Opportunities for Superapps in the Philippines

The Philippines has witnessed an upsurge in the superapp economy, garnering immense popularity among Filipino consumers, with use cases such as payments, P2P lending, and investments leading the way. Superapps are mobile applications that provide a wide range of services and solutions to their users under a single platform or ecosystem, which have gained immense popularity among Thai consumers.

The Philippines’ digital economy is poised for growth, with a projected value of US$35 billion by 2025[1], and a CAGR of 209%. With the Philippines entering the growth stage marked by 69% internet penetration and ongoing expansion to smaller cities nationwide, increased social media advocacy and a growing reliance on online purchasing, with nearly 63% of users now using mobile applications for e-commerce transactions. E-commerce, streaming, and food delivery sectors are three industries that are poised for continued growth, with the e-commerce market expected to grow with a CAGR of 17% in the forecast period of 2022 to 2025.

Andrew Male, Client Partner, ASEAN, Publicis Sapient says, “With 63% of the population in the Philippines being unbanked, and with mobile users spending an average of over 5 hours daily on their smartphones, banking is set to be the largest superapp opportunity in the Philippines. We are excited at the potential to elevate digital financial services in the Philippines through superapps, and work with our partners and customers in capturing new growth in this new digital-first economy.”

Here are three key growth imperatives that can help organizations define their approach to successful superapps.

1. Identifying a winning proposition with strong product-market fit and a viable business model

The first step lies in establish the commercial objectives that will drive the superapp project, whether growth or the need to protect market share. At the same time, factors such as target client segments, target partner landscape and partnership approach, economic model, as well as regulatory approach need to be nailed down. The product development model should recognize and accommodate the needs of different stakeholders: Customers, partners, and the company itself.

From a technology standpoint, considerations for platform capability and architecture are necessary to define key components and decide what to build, buy or reuse. This will shape the underlying technology stack that must be put in place.

 

2. Define the path to create an MVP through internal expertise and collaborative partnerships, and swiftly testing it in the market

Adopt a holistic, customer-centric approach that focuses on connecting different touchpoints across the entire customer journey, by proactively identifying pain points and friction through data-driven insights while delivering maximum value.

Embrace an iterative approach to minimum viable product (MVP) development, rapidly prototyping and testing ideas to gather feedback and make improvements. At the same time, partner and customer feedback should be incorporated early in the process to ensure the proposition remains relevant while it is being developed and tested

 

3. Craft an AI and ML-driven experience tailored to user preferences

To create a successful superapp, organizations must understand customers’ behavior and preferences to create better personalized recommendations and services. This helps to increase customer engagement and loyalty. This can be done through analysis of data including customer purchase history, browsing behavior, search queries, and other metrics, to gain valuable information about customer needs and preferences. From this, organizations can be better prepared to build hyper-personalized recommendation systems by predicting customer consumption patterns and analyzing customer activity.

As consumers are increasingly demanding more personalized and hyper-convenient experiences that meet their needs, the superapp framework is an ideal solution towards transforming the user experience via mobile and digital, enabling access to an assortment of tools for specific tasks or services.

Learn more about the Philippines superapp opportunity for growth here.

[1] e-Conomy SEA 2022 by Google, Temasek, Bain & Company