PUBLISHED DATE: 2025-08-24 21:35:49

November 2023

The Philippines SUPERAPP Opportunity for Growth

Rise of the SUPERAPP Economy in the Philippines

The Philippines has witnessed an upsurge in the SUPERAPP economy. SUPERAPPs are versatile mobile applications offering a wide array of services within a single platform, and they have garnered immense popularity among Filipino consumers. Payments, P2P lending, and investments are the major use cases in digital financial services, capitalizing on over 69% internet adoption. The Philippines is strategically positioned to harness the SUPERAPP opportunity, with leading banks such as BPI, Union Bank, and RCBC championing the SUPERAPP economy, alongside offerings from conglomerates like PLDT and Globe, which are disrupting digital payments.

SUPERAPPs can shape interconnected customer journeys and deliver effortless experiences, enhancing convenience, efficiency, and the ability to address diverse needs. Embracing this shift compels financial institutions to expand their distribution channels beyond their core offerings. By wholeheartedly embracing this transformation and adapting to the evolving landscape, banks and other financial institutions can embed themselves in their customers' entire life journeys, fostering continuous growth.

Key Facts:

SUPERAPPs: The New Face of Embedded Ecosystems

The ASEAN SUPERAPP market is poised to reach USD 23 billion by 2025. These SUPERAPPs excel by serving as unified platforms housing diverse, often third-party services. Large conglomerates and widely adopted digital platforms are launching their own SUPERAPPs, while smaller to medium-sized enterprises tend to integrate with existing ones.

The key to SUPERAPP success lies in seamless integration into users' daily lives. For instance, toktok, a popular Philippine digital platform, has transitioned from a digital wallet to a comprehensive ecosystem covering ride-hailing, food delivery, payments, utilities, and shopping, becoming an integral part of users' routines.

SUPERAPPs empower financial institutions such as banks and fintechs to craft streamlined, linear customer journeys devoid of multiple apps, browser sites, or redundant personal input. These seamless journeys hold immense potential for elevating customer experiences and optimizing efficiency. They not only boost purchase likelihood but also lead to higher per capita consumption of services. By fostering sustained customer loyalty and engagement, banks and fintechs can unlock the coveted goal of maximizing customer lifetime value and earning revenue from fee-based income sources.

Examples of SUPERAPPs in the Philippines:

Top 3 Companies Acing the SUPERAPP Model in Asia

  1. Grab
    • Services: Social/messaging, e-commerce, food delivery, ride-sharing, other O2O services, delivery & logistics, Grab Financial Group, digital bank joint venture
    • In-app messaging: Yes
    • Number of customers: 185 million
    • Valuation: USD 15.5 billion
  2. TikTok
    • Services: Social/messaging, e-commerce, gaming, entertainment, content creation, delivery & logistics, payments
    • In-app messaging: Yes
    • Number of customers: 1.60 billion
    • Valuation: USD 66 billion
  3. Shopee
    • Services: Social/messaging, e-commerce, food delivery (limited presence), ride-sharing (no presence), gaming (no presence), delivery & logistics, payments, consumer lending/banking
    • In-app messaging: Yes
    • Number of customers: 200 million
    • Valuation: USD 16 billion

In-house capabilities are represented in blue, and partnerships in red.

Impact of SUPERAPPs on Banking

Convenience and Simplification

SUPERAPPs consolidate multiple services and functions into a single platform, eliminating the need for users to switch between different apps. This streamlines the user experience and makes it more convenient, saving time and effort.

Enhanced User Engagement and Retention

By offering a wide range of services, these platforms can keep users engaged, encourage frequent usage, and increase user retention. The more time users spend within the app, the more opportunities there are for generating revenue and delivering personalized experiences.

Network Effect and Ecosystem Expansion

SUPERAPPs often create an ecosystem of services and products that complement each other. As more users join the platform, the value of the app increases for both users and service providers.

Cross-Selling and Monetization Opportunities

SUPERAPPs can leverage the vast user base and data they accumulate to offer targeted advertising, cross-selling opportunities, and personalized recommendations. Additionally, they can earn revenue through commissions or transaction fees for the services offered within their platform.

Key Benefits:

Unlocking the SUPERAPP Opportunity in the Philippines

The Philippines' digital economy is growing at a CAGR of 20%.

Overall Digital Economy, 2022-25, GMV (US$ bn):

The Philippines’ digital economy is poised for continued growth, with a projected value of USD 35 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 20%.

Consumer-facing industries such as e-commerce, consumer goods, payments, e-travel, e-media, transport, and food delivery are experiencing significant digital disruption. Nearly 63% of users now use mobile applications for e-commerce transactions, indicating a scope of growth in digital adoption and a growing demand for mobile-first services.

The Philippines has entered the growth stage, marked by 69% internet penetration and its expansion to smaller cities, increased social media advocacy, and the growing reliance on online purchasing.

Digital Services Consumer Penetration Spurs Economic Growth

Digital services consumer penetration across Southeast Asia (SEA):

SEA added 67 million new digital consumers, highlighting the growing importance of digital services. The Philippines ranks 6th in digital services consumer penetration, with 9.8 million new digital consumers, accounting for 13% of the total consumers in the Philippines. The digital service market is highly competitive, with both local and international players vying for a share. In 2022, the Philippines observed a significant rise in capital invested, amounting to USD 0.8 billion with 68 deals in H1 2022.

The Rise of Integrated Services Through Digital Platforms

Consumer adoption of digital platforms (by industry):

E-commerce, streaming, and food delivery sectors are poised for continued growth. Of the surveyed population, 20% intend to use e-commerce services more, while 29% and 11% expressed intent to use transport and food delivery services more, respectively. The e-commerce market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 17% from 2022 to 2025.

Benchmarking Top SUPERAPPs in the Philippines

Banking is set to be the largest SUPERAPP opportunity in the Philippines.

Segments and Opportunity Size (USD Bn, 2023):

*Healthcare refers to the digital healthcare industry evaluated based on the top 2 prevalent apps in the country: konsultamd and mwell.

Benchmarking Top Financial SUPERAPPs in the Philippines

Key Players and Their Unique Selling Propositions:

Unlocking the Next Wave of SUPERAPP Growth Opportunity for Financial Services

Key Players and Potential Growth Opportunities:

Growth Imperatives to Run Successful SUPERAPPs

Financial institutions need to answer the question: Build or Buy?

They can either build their own SUPERAPP or embed their services into other such apps by entering into partnerships. These options have varying impacts on risk, cost, pace, and degree of customization in their offerings. The decision to build or buy depends on the agility, flexibility, and outsourcing capabilities of the institutions.

Build:

Buy:

The Publicis Sapient Approach to Establish a Successful SUPERAPP

  1. Identifying a Winning Proposition with Strong Product-Market Fit and a Viable Business Model
    • Establish commercial objectives (e.g., growth, market share protection, diversification), target client segments, target partner landscape and partnership approach, economic model, regulatory approach
    • Understand the priorities of potential partners by knowing what value is extracted by each partner in the transaction process as it impacts the economic model
    • Create a product development model that recognizes and accommodates the needs of different players: customers, partners, and the company itself
    • Identify platform capability and architecture to define key components and decide what to build, buy, or reuse to shape underlying technology
  2. Define the Path to Create an MVP Through Internal Expertise and Collaborative Partnerships, and Swiftly Test it in the Market
    • Adopt a holistic, customer-centric approach that focuses on connecting different touchpoints across the entire customer journey, creating a seamless and integrated experience for customers
    • Embrace an iterative approach to MVP development, rapidly prototyping and testing ideas to gather feedback and make improvements
    • Allow the team to incorporate partner and customer feedback early in the process and ensure the proposition remains relevant while it is being developed and tested
    • Optimize the customer journey by proactively identifying pain points and friction through data-driven insights while delivering maximum value
  3. Craft an AI and ML-Driven Experience Tailored to User Preferences
    • Understand customers' behavior and preferences to create better personalized recommendations and services, increasing customer engagement and loyalty
    • Analyze data and track customer purchase history, browsing behavior, search queries, and other metrics to gain valuable information about customer needs and preferences
    • Build hyper-personalized recommendation systems by predicting customer consumption patterns and analyzing customer activity

Case in Point: Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI)

BPI leverages its digital capabilities as a mechanism to reimagine banking by focusing on solving customers’ biggest challenges. It has developed unique journey-specific apps to radically transform customer outcomes. From its AI-powered banking app to its lifestyle app Vybe, BPI always puts the customer first.

Outstanding Feature – Customer Journey Specific Digital Platforms

BPI has 7 core digital platforms catering to different needs of their customers:

The bank also has a partnership with Lazada to have a virtual bank on the e-commerce platform, aiming to grow its user base and offer a more convenient and seamless banking experience for its customers.

Outcomes:

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About Publicis Sapient

Publicis Sapient is a digital business transformation company. We partner with global organizations to help them create and sustain competitive advantage in a world that is increasingly digital.

We operate through our expert SPEED capabilities: Strategy and Consulting, Product, Experience, Engineering, and Data, which, combined with our culture of curiosity and deep industry knowledge, enables us to deliver meaningful impact to our clients’ businesses through reimagining the products and experiences their customers truly value.

Our agile, data-driven approach equips our clients’ businesses for change, making digital the core of how they think and what they do. Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe, with 20,000 people and over 50 offices worldwide.

For more information, visit publicissapient.com