WhatsApp is becoming the super app that Elon Musk wants and we haven’t even realized it

WhatsApp has been turning slightly for years to become an application for everything, the same thing that Elon Musk wants to achieve with X

Mark Zuckerberg may never end up having a fight with Elon Musk , but the battle is being fought in the app store: the race to see who can launch the ultimate super app . Elon Musk wants to do it with Twitter, now X , and Zuckerberg has been doing it for years on WhatsApp, in such a subtle way that we haven’t even noticed.

While Musk has turned the old Twitter upside down in his attempt to turn the application into an application for everything, name and logo change included, WhatsApp has chosen to do it little by little , so that we do not notice. And it seems to be working, as the transformation to the league of superapps is increasingly evident.

What is a super app

A term that has become fashionable lately is superapp, after Elon Musk has shown his intention to convert Twitter to precisely that. The term is not exactly new and basically defines applications that serve everything and become an ecosystem in themselves .

In Asia there are several examples, with giants like WeChat or Grab that accumulate a large number of services inside (especially the former). WeChat is fundamentally a chat app, but inside it includes “applets” for everything. Its payment service, WeChat Pay, is used to pay the electricity bill and to buy in stores or online.

WeChat, especially its version in China, is the clearest example of a superapp or application for everything

In Europe, the closest thing we have to superapps are the Google or Apple ecosystems , although both are lame precisely in the messaging part, where Google does not find the key and Apple does not impose itself with its iMessage almost anywhere outside from home .

For Musk and Zuckerberg, transmuting their messaging apps has clear advantages: messaging apps barely make any money, so the more added services that are included, the more room there is for monetization . The problem is that a super app needs to be, that is, super, massive, and impose itself above the rest, which means that there is basically only room for one or two clear contenders.

WhatsApp’s long road to becoming a super app

By 2017, customer service services began to arrive timidly through WhatsApp and next year WhatsApp Business and its API were ready , the officialization of WhatsApp’s intentions to be more than a messaging application.

That Facebook then and Meta now want to get their hands on WhatsApp is something that has been evident since they bought the application back in 2014 . After all, 19 billion dollars is a lot and they expect a return on investment that is impossible to achieve with subscriptions of less than one euro per year.

In fact, a year after the purchase, WhatsApp eliminated the subscription, officially being a free application. In exchange, they warned that the application was going to open for business , so that we could chat with them. Users don’t pay, but businesses probably do.

WhatsApp Business in its initial version of 2018

By 2017, customer service services began to arrive timidly through WhatsApp and next year WhatsApp Business and its API were ready , the officialization of WhatsApp’s intentions to be more than a messaging application.

WhatsApp Business has been improving since its launch, allowing businesses to create virtual stores and offer support. Users can buy and make transactions without leaving the same application they use to talk to their friends.

WhatsApp, the super app, does everything it can

And what is everything that WhatsApp has managed to integrate without us even realizing it? The main characteristic of a superapp is having a large number of users and also features. The first is fulfilled in spades. The second is more true every day:

• Chats between individuals and groups, with calls and video calls.
• News through the channels.
• Send money between individuals.
• Buy from small businesses from WhatsApp, with the product catalogYou shop at supermarkets, like at JioMart.
• Find companies in the area with a WhatsApp profile, with the business directory.
• Contact the customer service of businesses or entities.
• You shop at supermarkets, like at JioMart.
• Payments from the application itself.
• Book flights, hotels, tickets and more.

Image | With elements by Eduardo on Pixabay