inDrive revives Super App debate

Pakistan's long-running debate over the viability of a "Super App" model has resurfaced as inDrive moves to expand its platform beyond ride-hailing into groceries, delivery, and other digital services. The move revives questions that have followed earlier attempts in the country, particularly whether Pakistan's market structure, consumer behaviour, and payments ecosystem can support a unified digital platform offering multiple everyday services under one app.

The earlier failures in Pakistan were not due to the concept itself, but to flawed sequencing and weak foundations, said Nurken Rzaliyev, Head of Q-Commerce Services at inDrive, in an exclusive interview with The Express Tribune.

"Super apps fail when platforms try to do too many things at once," Rzaliyev said. "You need one strong core service that people already trust and use frequently. Without that, everything else becomes fragmented. Expansion has to be built on daily behaviour, not ambition." Rzaliyev argued that Pakistan's digital market is structurally different today compared to the period when earlier Super App attempts struggled. Smartphone usage has expanded, consumers are more accustomed to online shopping, and the digital payments infrastructure has improved. Systems such as Raast, along with private fintech platforms, have increased transaction reliability and accessibility, particularly in urban centres.

"People now understand digital services," he said. "Online payments are no longer unfamiliar, and everyday services like ride-hailing and deliveries are part of routine life for many users. That changes how platforms can scale."

inDrive's strategy is anchored in its ride-hailing business, which provides a recurring, high-frequency user base. The company, founded in Siberia in 2012 as a community response to high taxi fares, operates on a negotiated pricing model rather than algorithmic fare-setting. This approach has gained traction in price-sensitive markets, including Pakistan, where negotiation is a common feature of daily transactions. Since entering Pakistan in 2021, inDrive has expanded across more than 20 cities for urban rides and over 200 cities for intercity travel. The company now employs around 150 people locally, with operational support from its parent organisation based in Kazakhstan and Cyprus.

Rather than launching a full Super App at once, inDrive is integrating services gradually. Rides, courier, freight, and grocery delivery are being added in phases, with financial services under consideration for future development. The grocery segment is being developed through a partnership with Crave Mart, a dark-store-based quick commerce platform.

Rzaliyev described groceries as a high-frequency and high-margin, upto category, with margins of up to 55% globally, category that naturally fits into daily digital behaviour. Household essentials and food purchases represent one of the largest recurring expenditures for Pakistani consumers, making the sector strategically important for platform expansion. However, the quick-commerce model remains operationally complex, with logistics, warehousing, and last-mile delivery costs posing structural challenges. Independent analysts caution that integration alone does not guarantee platform success.

Mutaher Khan, Cofounder of Data Darbar, which maps Pakistan's startup ecosystem, said the grocery expansion through Crave Mart does not fundamentally change the underlying market structure. "inDrive is operating through Crave Mart. Operationally, there is nothing fundamentally different there," Khan said. "It's essentially backend integration, but it's still Crave Mart. Their numbers would be decent, but not exceptional, and certainly smaller than PandaMart, based on market estimates."

Khan also pointed to inDrive's dominant position in ride-hailing as the company's primary strategic asset. "Based on earlier estimates, inDrive had close to 70% market share. It's possible that Yango has taken some share due to aggressive discounts, but inDrive still holds the majority," he said. "The key factor is supply reliability. When supply is ensured, demand stays there. If users are confident that a rider will show up when they open the app, they keep using the platform." On the payments side, Khan noted that Pakistan's digital transaction data remains difficult to quantify accurately due to fragmented channels and off-app processing.

"If you calculate across platforms, the total digital payments market is under a billion dollars annually," he said. "Roughly 50 million transactions over the last four quarters, around Rs250 billion, which is about $900 million. But this data is structurally messy."

This fragmentation highlights one of the core challenges facing any Super App model in Pakistan: integration across logistics, commerce, and payments remains structurally incomplete. While digital adoption has improved, the ecosystem is still characterised by parallel systems rather than a unified digital infrastructure.

Market analysts argue that Pakistan's Super App success will depend less on branding and more on execution fundamentals:, including service reliability, pricing transparency, logistics efficiency, and trust. Consumer loyalty remains fluid, and price sensitivity continues to shape platform choice.