Tata Digital launched India’s first super app, Tata Neu, on Thursday bringing services such as groceries, electronics, fashion, hotels, flights, food, digital content and even medical diagnostics in a one-stop app.
Tata Neu brings together some of the group’s marquee in-house brands a few of which it had earlier acquired including BigBasket, 1mg, IHCL Hotels, Qmin, Starbucks, Croma, Tata CliQ, Westside and Air Asia. The app is yet to list Vistara, Air India and Curefit’s services.
“The journey of Tata Neu has begun with a cumulative consumer base of 120 million users, 2,500 offline stores, along with an 80 million app footprint across our digital assets. We have over a dozen category leading consumer brands ranging from electronics, fashion, travel, hospitality, groceries, pharmacy and financial services. We believe that with Tata Neu, we will create a highly differentiated consumer platform,” Pratik Pal, CEO, Tata Digital, said in a statement.
Reward programme
The app comes with two new key features — a common reward programme across services and the introduction of UPI-based Tata Pay. Tata Neu is offering ‘NeuCoins’ for its rewards programme which can be exchanged for equal amount of INR, wherein 1 NeuCoin is equal to ₹1. Members earn 5 per cent NeuCoins or more every time they shop, dine, or travel via Tata Neu. NeuPass members will enjoy several benefits such as free deliveries, exclusive offers, built-in credit line, early access to product launches and brand-specific privileges. Existing users of apps like BigBasket and 1mg can seamlessly migrate to the new super app without having to punch in details like a delivery address.
“Tata Neu is an exciting platform that gathers all our brands into one powerful app. Combining our traditional consumer-first approach with the modern ethos of technology, it is an all-new way to discover the wonderful world of Tata. The power of choice, a seamless experience, and loyalty will be at the centre of Tata Neu, delivering a powerful One Tata experience,” said N Chandrasekaran, Chiarman, Tata Sons
Is India super app-ready?
While the app by itself looked promising, industry experts remained divided on the scope of the super app model in India as complications related to draft e-commerce rules, data privacy and app stickiness surface.
“The super app model may work in India, but will face difficulties given the e-commerce regime that is being proposed. I do not expect it to work as well as WeChat did in China. Exclusivity and the range of services will attract the customers while the reward points will be the means of retaining them,” Shoubhik Dasgupta, Partner, Pioneer Legal, told BusinessLine.