[#3] Inside Flipkart’s Attempt To Become A Super-App
Flipkart India might have acquired Walmart India recently but the experiments have been running for quite sometime
A super-app is something that provides multiple functionalities under an umbrella app.
Thanks to cheap internet on mobile phones, ever-dwindling costs of smartphones, and an abundance of OTT apps, India is witnessing an all-out streaming war. The market, though very nascent, has attracted a lot of interest from multiple players, and the latest one to join the bandwagon is Flipkart.
There already are numerous theories from experts and analysts alike on why this move makes/doesn’t make sense. And while I am neither, this blog post is a humble attempt in trying to use connect dots and deduce a meaningful conclusion using my intuition and exposure.
We don’t mind being proven wrong. We’ll be happy to learn.
But first things first, if you’re reading this newsletter for the first time, please take a moment and consider signing up.
——
This post originally appeared here.
But before the games begin, let’s take a look at some stats —
There are roughly 560 mn internet users in the country. 97% of users access the internet through their mobile devices. A 75% share of mobile internet usage will be soon attributed to video streaming.
Possible conclusions — India is rapidly moving towards a mobile-first digital economy. A bulk of the users consume internet content on their mobile devices. These possibly can be from Tier 2/3 cities.
3 of the top 4 video streaming apps in India offer a lot of their content for FREE.
Indians like consuming video forms of content. In fact, they binge-watch videos and are forecasted to reach the global average by the end of this year.
Possible conclusions — Video content gets the most user traction and free video content ensures stickiness. This further suggests that a bulk of the binge watchers come from Tier 2/3 cities where internet penetration is deeper than economic prosperity.
What do these conclusions mean and how Flipkart fits into all of this?
Flipkart has revealed a lot of hints, discretely and across a lot of platforms. This will all start making a lot more sense when you combine them with the conclusions we drew in the previous section of this post.
Flipkart has rolled out the video platform for Android users. The focus is really clear. The next set of 200 mn internet users is expected to come from Tier 2/3 cities and not many of them would have the PPP to afford an iPhone.
The Video feature is bundled along with an Ideas feature as well which again is a — surprise, surprise — Android only offering. The Ideas feature is an effort in the direction of social commerce— shopping through the content generated by influencers and brands.
The following is a screenshot of the app from my Android phone. It’ll give you a good insight into how they’re trying to pivot into a super-app, targetted exclusively for the users from Tier 2/3.
Now the video content is free for all users and also doesn’t contain any ads. However, the more interesting thing here is revealed when you do a deep dive. The application has just two modes of streaming — auto and good (more like 480p). And there’s no option of downloading the content and watching it offline. The content catalog is almost devoid (as far as I could check) of any English content and is heavy on Hindi and vernacular languages.
Clearly, a download option is missing adjacent to “Sharing” and “My List”. And the content catalog is purely Hindi & vernacular.
Concluding notes
The next set of Indian internet users will come from Tier 2/3 cities, will have affordable Android phones. This means they’re competing with the likes of Gaana, Jio, Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato, Paytm among many others for the fixed space in the phones of the users. And Tier 2/3 India buys online seasonally. Not to forget the timing — Diwali and Dhanteras are coming.
Hence, it’s absolutely paramount for each of the aforementioned apps to provide multiple functionalities that ensure engagement throughout the year, beyond seasons. This will ensure they don’t choose to delete the “particular” app (Flipkart in this case) whenever they want to install that next cool app on their cheap android smartphone and are pressed for space.
This is very clear from the manner with which they’ve designed the application. They could have easily provided an option to watch the content offline or launched a separate application for the same. But they chose to adopt a super-app approach.
Flipkart, probably, never wants to compete with the likes of YouTube, Jio, and Hotstar. It just wishes to stay relevant in the minds of the user and since the entire country is hungry for video content delivered on their smartphones, Videos were the way to go for them. Even Netflix coming out with a cheaper mobile-only subscription plan exclusively for the Indian market is proof of that.
That being said, let us know what you think in the comments.
Views expressed here are our own and don’t reflect the views of any of our employers, present or past.
In case we haven’t met, I’m Pratyush Choudhury.
Thank you for reading. We hope it was worth the while and left you better than it found you! :)
——
And if you enjoyed reading this article, please share further.