Why Zomato, Amazon, Flipkart are shunning the super-app approach

For years, large conglomerates such as Tata Group, Reliance Industries, and most recently, the Adani Group, have tried to create a super app for India. Yet, as these traditional giants pursue all-in-one platforms, some early players in the digital economy are doing the opposite—creating standalone apps or spinning off existing businesses into separate apps.

Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that Amazon plans to launch a separate app for its payment service, Amazon Pay. Similarly, Flipkart recently announced the successful beta launch of its new payments app, SuperMoney.

Though the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has hinted that it may not impose a 30% market share cap on UPI players, the expectation of one could have influenced these companies' decisions to hive off their payments businesses. A dedicated fintech app could be better positioned to capture market share over one residing in an e-commerce app should NPCI decide it’s uncomfortable with the current duopoly of PhonePe and Google Pay.