According to a report by market research firm Ipsos published in January 2022, 51% of people in Southeast Asia said they shopped online more often, and 1 in 2 people said that they paid by digital wallets or other cashless tools. A recent Ipsos study found that 82% of digital service users in Southeast Asia ordered food delivery and 43% used ride-hailing services.

To find out the popular super apps in Southeast Asia, Ipsos conducted a study in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Ipsos in Indonesia surveyed 3,500 respondents to find the best super apps in each country.

Super apps in Vietnam and Southeast Asia are considered on the criteria of experience, recognition, interactivity and usefulness. (Photo: Hai Dang)

Soeprapto Tan, Managing Director of Ipsos Indonesia, said that there are many ways to define a super app, so the company had to design a set of criteria to evaluate what is a super app.

“This helps us come up with a shortlist of super app candidates in each country, which we then evaluate based on user ratings, based on what we consider to be the four core aspects core of a super app - user experience, engagement, awareness and usefulness,” explained Soeprapto Tan.

A super app is understood as an application that provides many services to meet different needs. In the study, Ipsos defines that a super app must provide more than 3 digital services, such as transportation (ride hailing), e-commerce, payment, food delivery, grocery shopping and other services. Social media-based apps were not included in this survey.

Based on the above criteria, it made a shortlist of super apps in each country.

Grab is considered the best super app across all six countries in the survey, with an overall average score of 63. Grab's score was highest in Singapore and Vietnam, followed by Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.

Shopee was in second place, with an average total score of 52, followed by Lazada (42), Gojek (22), Tokopedia (14), Traveloka (12), AirAsia (10), BliBli, BukaLapak and JDID (10), GCash (8), Touch n Go eWallet (7), Lineman (6), Be (5) and Zig (3).

Hai Dang