The healthtech sector has experienced fast growth and new developments in recent times, and new technologies are anticipated to improve health services. Plenty of sectors in ridesharing, food delivery, and ecommerce are seeing platforms and super apps take the lead. This raises the question: Is it possible for something similar to happen in health tech? Is it possible for one medical software platform to rise above the rest and lead the market?
What Defines a Super App
A superapp is a mobile application that brings together various services on one platform. It’s possible for users to avoid downloading many apps and instead get services for shopping, paying, communicating, and ordering food by using a super app.
Nowadays, examples are WeChat in China, GoJek in Southeast Asia, and PayTM in India. Millions of users use these super apps every month, and they are essential parts of local digital worlds. They give customers convenience and help parent companies promote their various products and gain information about all services.
The strategies underlying these super apps include:
- A user-centric design with seamless integration between services
- Using one core service as a “hook” before introducing complementary offerings
- Leveraging network effects and data to improve the platform over time
- Scaling quickly across regions to achieve market dominance
A successful super app made with the help of medical software development services essentially serves as an operating system for modern life in its target market.
Can HealthTech Follow This Playbook?
Healthtech startups around the world are adopting platform business models as they aim to stake their place as the leaders in regional healthcare ecosystems.
It’s easy to see why the super app playbook would appeal to health tech firms:
- Network effects in healthcare help, since more users lead to better data collection and improved ways to diagnose and treat patients.
- Patients prefer having an easy time when making appointments, viewing their medical information, or buying medication. A single app offers that.
- When a healthcare company is vertically integrated, it can make money through internet appointments and sales of drugs.
Even so, there are still big problems to solve, especially with rules and data privacy. Accessing medical care isn’t as easy as getting something to eat or travel tickets.
We’ll discuss some well-known global startups that are pursuing the coveted role of the “super app for healthcare” in their regions and what they have accomplished.
Ping An Good Doctor – The Early Mover in China
Many people in China rely on super apps such as WeChat and Alipay, which are now a big part of daily life. Ping An Good Doctor (PAGD) is among the first to show promise in healthcare.
PAGD began its journey in 2015 as the healthcare subsidiary of Ping An Insurance. It has since established an online platform providing telehealth consultations, appointment bookings, prescriptions, and health commerce. The app has over 400 million registered users.
Analysts estimate that PAGD’s value was already $1.7 billion in early 2025. It’s playing a key role in powering Ping An’s healthtech transformation. While adoption remains concentrated in Tier 1 & 2 cities, PAGD shows the potential success of a platform playbook in healthcare.
India: Practo, PharmEasy, and the B2B Approach
India’s healthtech environment is vibrant with numerous well-funded startups. While no runaway leader has emerged yet, companies like Practo and PharmEasy are leading contenders.
Practo started as a doctor appointment booking platform in 2008. It has since expanded into telemedicine, electronic health records, and diagnostic test bookings. Practo now claims over 20 million annual appointments with a presence in 35 Indian cities.
While the strong connection among these services helps, Practo is still not as popular as super apps each month. Most often, appointments are not something you do every day but just for single occasions.
Overall, India remains a largely untapped market, with over 30% of the population lacking health insurance. Startups need to adapt to local infrastructure challenges regarding digital access. No player has yet managed to link all facets of healthcare delivery into a single platform. The market remains open for disruption.
Moving Across ASEAN: GrabHealth, Halodoc, and Beyond
Southeast Asia represents the archetypal environment for super apps to thrive – high smartphone penetration, fragmented markets, and infrastructure constraints. Ridesharing platform Grab has also been working to expand its services.
In that same year, Grab introduced GrabHealth, which allows users to get online consultations and have medicine delivered through Ping An Good Doctor. It uses Grab’s existing drivers to handle last-mile delivery. This venture allows Grab to add more data and financial services to what it offers.
Indonesia-based Halodoc offers a more integrated platform spanning appointments, telehealth, records, and lab tests. In 2021, Halodoc raised $80 million from Ping An and Grab, among others. Its partnership with GrabHealth represents collaboration rather than competition.
Healthcare investments in Southeast Asia hit record highs in 2021. With a largely young and underinsured population, there remains enormous potential for digital health platforms. Super apps have revolutionized other sectors across the region’s countries – healthcare could well be next.
Europe: Vivy Aims to be the Next Patient Portal
In Europe, health systems are relatively well-developed. The opportunity lies not in fully private platforms but in integrating with national infrastructure.
Germany-based Vivy specializes in managing patient health records and test results. It has taken a partnership approach with providers, labs, and insurers, allowing patients to access their data in one place.
While Vivy may not replicate super apps in commerce, its platform playbook has proven effective, leveraging health data and partnerships to gain scale and trust. Its focus on working within established health systems differentiates it from disruptive upstarts in emerging markets.
Applying Super App Strategies to HealthTech
As these examples illustrate, healthtech players around the world are leveraging elements of the super app playbook:
- Using consultations and convenience services to attract users
- Integrating vertically across healthcare delivery
- Leveraging partnerships for growth
- Expanding across regions and patient demographics
However, healthcare has unique challenges regarding regulations, data sensitivity, and stakeholder alignment. Companies must customize the super app model to local healthcare priorities and systems.
A pure private sector platform like Ping An Good Doctor faces different growth constraints compared to a partnership-driven approach like Vivy or Halodoc. The most successful health tech platforms will likely blend these strategies.
Opportunities and Challenges Ahead
Health tech firms pursuing platform strategies have reason for optimism. The following drivers should support the rise of health super apps:
- Increasing smartphone and health tech adoption, especially in developing countries
- Demand for convenience and patient centricity, particularly from younger demographics
- Advances in data analytics to derive insights across aggregated services
- Strategic corporate investments pprovidecapital and strategic partnerships
However, significant barriers remain regarding health infrastructure, regulations, and public trust:
- Overstretched health systems with capacity constraints on staffing and infrastructure
- Privacy concerns regarding health data sharing across private platforms
- Misinformation risk across uncontrolled platforms
- Cybersecurity threats to health data and records
As health super apps aim for scale, they need to prioritize inclusivity and public stewardship rather than pure shareholder value. Apps tracking period cycles or fertility now store extremely sensitive data, for example. We should encourage innovation, but we also need to ensure appropriate safeguards and form partnerships with health authorities.
Trust is still to be earned across private health platforms relative to public health systems. Responsible data sharing frameworks need to be communicated clearly to patients.
Predicting the Health Super App Landscape by 2030
Based on the trends outlined earlier, here is one projection for what the health super app landscape could shape up to be globally:
- China will cement its leadership with 1-2 dominant super apps centered around leaders like Ping An Good Doctor. Consolidation will accelerate with smaller players getting acquired.
- India will nurture a competitive ecosystem with multiple regional leaders but no single dominant player across the fragmented market.
- Southeast Asia will see its digital health infrastructure transform through super app platforms like GrabHealth and Halodoc. This can later expand globally.
- In the Western world, patient engagement platforms will integrate closely with provider systems. Apps like Vivy will become ubiquitous patient portals across Europe.
- Significant patient data sharing across borders will remain a challenge due to privacy concerns and healthcare nationalism. Apps will concentrate on domestic markets.
- Emerging markets will drive innovation given larger digital health gaps and consumer openness to platform models. Developed markets will focus more on holistic care.
Overall, while no app may gain the ubiquity WeChat has in China, we can expect 2-3 health super apps to emerge as clear leaders across India, Southeast Asia, and China markets. Unlike other industries, regulatory barriers and fragmentation across health systems will limit global consolidation. The winners will take a collaborative approach between the private sector and public healthcare.
The Road Ahead for Health Platforms
While healthcare trails other sectors, the platform revolution has firmly arrived and promises to expand access and quality while lowering costs. Digital transformation plans are crucial for incumbents to avoid falling behind agile startups.
Even during this disruption, trust and health should stay more important than just convenience. Good data-sharing policies and fair ways of ruling platforms matter more as competition becomes tougher.
It is not enough for technology to address infrastructure problems and a shortage of skilled workers in healthcare. Digital platforms rely on the efforts of people. Care for people should be the goal of super apps, not only making healthcare a business.
The COVID-19 pandemic sped up the global use of digital health systems by several years. It’s clear that, after the pandemic, health data integration and mobility must be provided and not just be considered an extra benefit. Startups and governments should partner to ensure digital public goods help all parts of society.
Platform business models have allowed revolutionary delivery of financial, transport, and commerce services to millions worldwide. Healthtech innovators now have the wind behind them to pull off a similar transformation – perhaps the final frontier for super apps. But this requires sustainable partnerships that align public and private incentives for collective benefit.
To read more content like this, explore The Brand Hopper
Subscribe to our newsletter
