Coming Soon: A SuperApp From Tata Group To Integrate All Of Its Consumer Businesses On One Platform

Tata Digital’s ambitious plan to create a SuperApp along with acquisition of online grocery retailer Big Basket has gathered steam, reports The Economic Times.

A SuperApp consists of several features like digital payments, social media, gaming and travel bookings.

With the help of a SuperApp, Tata Group seeks to bring all its consumer businesses on one platform.

As the discussions to aggressively scale up Starquik for the SuperApp plan did not work, Tata Digital has decided to acquire Big Basket.

While Starquik is the online platform of Trent-owned grocery chain Starbazaar and Trent is the retail hand of Tata group that was started in 1998, Tata Digital is part of group chairman N Chandrasekaran’s strategy of tapping scalable opportunities in a post-Covid world.

Trent chairman Noel Tata has commissioned fresh investments, as part of this Starquik has set up miniature warehouse-like spaces to fulfil online orders. Trent’s apparel store Westside has also set up its own webstore recently.

Answering to The Economic Times, Trent chairman Noel Tata indicated that the retailer would have both online and offline channels of its own, but also look at selling its products on Tata Digital’s platform.

“We are excited to be part of Tata Digital’s plans with its promise of connecting over 45 million Tata customers for our Westside brand. Trent has been one of the first Tata entities to agree terms of engagement with Tata Digital and we are actively engaged with Tata Digital to list all our brand apps on its platform,” Noel Tata said.

On the other hand, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and Facebook too are exploring the possibility of creating a SuperApp, by leveraging WhatsApp and its user base. The plan is to create a platform on the lines of WeChat, which combines digital payments, social media, gaming, flight and hotel bookings.