Building a super app for the Middle East

Building a super app for the Middle East

Building a super app for the Middle East



Before smartphones and mobile app stores, the internet was dominated by a handful of web portals that offered their users several services on one platform. The homepages of Yahoo, MSN and AOL were "one stop shops“ for news, search, email and instant messenger and were the primary means by which users accessed the internet.

Increasingly, those who experience the internet for the first time, do so on a mobile device and are more likely to use an app than a browser. And so what has emerged are super apps, an evolution of the web portals of the 1990s, one app where the internet essentially takes place.  

The term super app is most readily applied to the Chinese tech giants - WeChat and Alipay, and Indonesia's Gojek, platforms on which its users communicate, consume content, order their groceries and dinners as well as apply for mortgages and transfer money to peers.

It is a way of providing an ecosystem within the internet that offers a variety of services, that work seamlessly together to offer convenience to its users with a single log-in and profile.

Taking inspiration from these Asian players is the Middle East-based Careem,