Tech Roundup, Sep. 20, 2019 | The rise of “super apps” in Brazil

You’re reading The Brazilian Report‘s weekly tech roundup, a digest of the most important news on technology and innovation in Brazil. This week’s topics: the potential market for “super apps” in Brazil. Brazil to finally get its first AI university course. Brazilian 21-year-old wins environmental innovation award. How connected Brazilian kids and teens are.

In Brazil, “super apps” become attractive for saving storage space

As Brazilians become increasingly more connected to online technologies, the market for apps has skyrocketed. According to a recent study by analytics company Adjust, the country boasts the second-fastest-growing app market in the world, only trailing behind Indonesia. But Brazilian users are not loyal to their apps, with the second-highest uninstall rate in the world—only Vietnam sends more apps to the trash.

The reason for this is that Brazilian smartphone users are always looking to save storage space. According to Google data, an average smartphone in Brazil has 8 gigabytes of memory, but only 1 gigabyte of storage—which is only enough to keep around 20 apps at any one time. That’s how “super apps”—that is, those which gather multiple services within the same platform—could grow.

The model has been a bonafide success in China, with companies such as WeChat (1 billion monthly active users) and Alipay (1 billion annual active users). Brazilians, however, are much less aware of this type of app. A recent Google survey showed 80 percent of users didn’t know what a “super app” was, but 45 percent would be willing to download them, and 30 percent said saving storage space would be the best reason to do so.

In Brazil, Colombian unicorn (a startup valued at over USD 1 billion) Rappi is blazing a trail in the super-app market. The company began by only offering food delivery, but now...