Hopper CEO Hopes to Create a Google-Crushing Superapp for Travel
Photo Caption: Hopper CEO, at Skift Global Forum 2021, said he sees a future in superapps for the West in the years ahead.
Skift Take
The generational signs are there, according to Hopper Chief Frederic Lalonde , and they're showing a future for superapps in the West.
Hopper’s long trajectory in the travel industry, going from an online travel agency to venturing into fintech, has led it from barely making revenue to now earning 70 percent from selling financial products to third-party businesses.
But the company has bigger plans ahead in its ongoing mission to continue being the best at lowering the cost of travel for consumers — it’s betting on the future of superapps for travel, which are already popular in Asia.
“There will be a Western global superapp for travel — it may be owned by Google, Facebook or Alibaba, but it will be a superapp and we’re trying to become that,” said Frederic Lalonde, CEO of Hopper, at Skift Global Forum, in conversation with Skift founding editor Dennis Schaal.
Lalonde did not flinch at Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's skepticism on superapps working in the West in the way they do in Asia.
“I’m obsessed with it,” Lalonde sa
