Reliance plans super app with Just Dial offerings | Economic Times

Reliance Retail is refurbishing its Jio App launched months back primarily in the grocery space to include multiple consumer offerings by integrating the recent acquisition of Just Dial to make it a super app and a one stop window for every imaginable consumer need, officials said.The final contours of the product are being sharpened and will be launched as soon as the government announces clarity on the ecommerce policy, officials added. The app will also be integrated with WhatsApp on the lines of WeChat, the most popular social commerce platform in China with over one billion users.SuperApp is a marketplace of services and offerings, delivered via in-house technology and through third party integrations. It helps de-clutter the number of apps on a mobile-phone, an essential thing for a low-end smartphone in Asia.Top officials close to Reliance said the conglomerate has been clear that it has to reach consumers for every possible requirement in the products and services space. "Super app is just a fancy term. Whatever one calls it, it is about touching consumers and meeting their every single requirement. Nothing is done adhoc in terms of planning or strategy to access consumers. Jio had begun the journey years back with telecom and is now scaling it up and tapping every route that accesses consumers," an official said seeking anonymity.Reliance did not comment. "The directive is clear that Reliance should be the number one player in the ecommerce space and acquistions and partnerships have been long planned to achieve that. We are investing accordingly," an official said seeking anonymity.Reliance is pumping in additional several thousand crores into its ecommerce strategy with a clear directive to pre-empt competition and be a formidable number one player in the space currently dominated by Amazon and Walmart Flipkart, top officials close to the development said. In July 2020, Chinese super-app WeChat officially stopped operations in India after being banned by the country over privacy fears."Reliance has been aggressive with growth of communications and retail businesses, and their partnerships and acquisitions are consistent with the move to build the overarching bridge presence of the dominant superapp," consulting firm Third Eyesight's chief executive Devangshu Dutta said. "The disproportionate amount of online business in India is driven by a very small consumer base in the larger cities. In contrast, Reliance has focussed on spreading out into a consumer base that is lower down the income pyramid and in smaller cities and towns."The Mukesh Ambani-controlled group has been able to attract some of the best global companies as strategic partners. Facebook and Google have bought strategic stake in Jio Platforms and the company has collaboration with Microsoft on SME offerings and cloud. Apart from being a cellular entity, Jio has built more than 20 consumer apps under its umbrella app MyJio. Reliance Retail Ventures acquired a majority stake in JustDial for ₹3,497 crore last month."While the app acts as an access point to other Jio Apps, it is predominantly used mainly for recharges. In our view, the app does not yet have a strong value proposition that every customer would use. Overtime, if two to three of these apps gain traction then RIL has a potential of creating a similar impact that of a Super-app. However, the traction would be similar to that shown by Google in the US - where apps like YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail etc are standalone apps," said a recent report by BofA Securities.However, the report said none of the Indian tech-cos are currently at the point where China and ASEAN apps are in the super-app journey and believe Indian companies are still some time away - both from customer value proposition as well as the MOAT in the fiercely competitive Indian market.Mukesh Ambani had recently also announced a set of integrations between WhatsApp and JioMart on a trial basis.