If reports are to be believed, Tata Neu — the super app launched by the Tata Group in April of 2022 — will probably miss its sales targets for the year by 50%.
What is happening: The Tata launched superapp- a digital mall- comes in line with other big names like Adani and Ambani entering into the valuable digital real estate.
Tata Neu, a one stop app for accessing multiple Tata services like BigBasket, Westside, Taj or even Tata Capital enabled consumers to access a perfect space to deploy a cross-selling blitzkrieg.
Why it matters: Marketed as the next big thing, that its predictions miss the mark by 50% was actually not a surprise to the app's users.
The discussion stirring report led to social media being ablaze with reviews on the app with the common one being its lackluster working.
What the numbers say: It is projected that the ambitious mega app from Tata Group will only reach 50% of the sales target in its first year, prompting the major Indian firm to reconsider its digital strategy.
Tata Digital Pvt.’s online platform, Tata Neu, which went live in April, will see sales of about $4 billion in the year to March 31 compared with the $8 billion target set at the beginning of 2022
Backdrop: Based on China's ubiquitous Alipay and WeChat, Tata Neu was India's first super app under development since at least mid-2020 but rapidly encountered technical issues and user concerns.
The primary holding firm of the business, Tata Sons Pvt., looked into finding financial or strategic backers to support the super app, including international technology companies however, potential investors hesitated at the requested valuation for a startup company.
The big picture: Stating slow running of the app as one of the reasons of its poor consumer base, a report by Deloitte found that getting a mobile e-commerce site to load faster by even 0.1 seconds has a big impact and that conversions rise by 8% and customers spend 9% more money.
There was a cognitive overdrive of which consumers were not a big fan.
What is being said: “@tata_neu is the most complicated app to use. It’s slow and every transaction it’s asking login, then what’s for it’s a supper app if you go on login for each and every section. 1mg, Big Basket or Tata Play are much faster than Tata neu.”
“Tata Neu was a very bad implementation of what a Super App should be. You can’t just fill your app with all the features and expect people to just use it. The organic way is to have one service for which people would keep coming back to the app and then build on top of it.”
What now: If analysts are to be believed, maybe people like the ‘one app, one purpose’ model. Cross-selling doesn’t work. Ergo, superapps will fail.
Read in short: Tata Neu, the latest superapp in the market, seems to be failing as it fails to meet its projected numbers.
