As someone who's never been to China and has never used a super-app: just curious, what are some of the obstacles faced installing a mobile app? Is it that most people don't trust un-curated apps?
A super app that brings existing user bases solves both the deployment and discoverability problems.
Actually learning every new app is an obstacle, but they managed to learn to a few apps like WeChat because it's super useful. They won't spend time to learn about something that won't bring immediate reward. Once they have a few apps installed on their phone, they'd feel that's enough.
A nice, smooth, mobile-optimized website, I mean.
I can now go to a vendor's website (say jrwatkins.com, etc.) on my phone, checkout, do a fingerprint/face scan on Apple Pay and the transaction is done in under 5 seconds.
I assume the experience with Google Pay is similar.
There's no longer a need to create an account on the website. The delivery address defaults to the one on Apple Pay (and can be modified at time of payment). Delivery method can also be selected on the Apple Pay screen. My credit card number is never transmitted. This type of frictionless checkout that was once the domain of companies like Hoteltonight is now becoming more common on ecommerce sites.
I don't know what payment methods these services require now, but in the beginning at least, they both supports just credit cards, which is basically suicidal. Most users won't be able to use it at all.
From merchants' perspective, they don't need to pay for transactions on WeChat Pay or AliPay, whereas both Apple Pay and credit card companies would charge them for usage. For this reason most small business wouldn't even think of using them.
According to the Apple developer docs[1], websites don't have to integrate with Apple Pay specifically; Safari also supports the (fairly new) platform-neutral Payment Request API[2]. Google's docs[3] suggest that something similar is available for Chrome on Android.
1. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_pay_on_the_w...
It supports Apple Cash, which in turn can funded via a bank debit card. (kind of like Venmo). There's no transaction fee with Apple Cash.
I believe there are currently no additional fees on the merchant side to accept Apple Pay [1], unless the customer uses a credit card via Apple Pay in which case the standard credit card fees apply.
We've never been big on mobile payments in the U.S. (because credit cards), but I'm finding myself using Apple Pay more and more. I read somewhere than ~50% of payments in the U.S. are now contactless.
I'm kind of thinking of markets outside China though.
I don't know about iOS but the two copy features from each other all the time so Apple probably has it too (if they weren't the first to launch them).
Honestly, if you're working from a QR code you might as well just serve a mobile web app. If you add PWA support your customers might even install it if they come around often.
The main benefit of super apps, and why it is so popular in those countries, is that it doesn't require users to download anything to use new feature. In some use cases I also found that so convenient.
Just as an example, WeChat has an ecosystem of mini-apps. When you go to a restaurant in China, you can often find QR code on each table. If you can that QR code, it would open a mini-apps that lets you place orders and make payments, without waiting for the waiter to serve you. A mini app is like a website that doesn't require download and storage on the phone, but the user experience feels more native and is tightly integrated with features available in WeChat. It would be much harder to get users if the same thing requires you download an app.