Perplexity’s India strategy was a distribution bet, not proof that it had overtaken ChatGPT. In a July 2025 report, Perplexity offered Airtel customers 12 months of Perplexity Pro at no direct charge, potentially putting its AI-search product in front of Airtel’s approximately 360 million subscribers. The goal was to acquire users through India’s telecom and fintech infrastructure instead of competing with OpenAI one consumer at a time.
That approach could accelerate awareness and usage. But the reported numbers also showed the central business risk: Perplexity was growing quickly from a much smaller base, while ChatGPT remained substantially larger and generated far more in-app revenue.
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What Perplexity meant by an “India shortcut”
“Shortcut” was a strategic metaphor. India did not make AI product development or monetization automatically easier. It offered Perplexity a way to bypass several advantages OpenAI had already built in the United States and other markets:
- ChatGPT’s strong consumer brand recognition;
- its large installed user base;
- its more established paid-subscription business; and
- the high cost of acquiring customers individually.
Instead of relying primarily on app-store discovery and standalone subscriptions, Perplexity could reach consumers through companies they already used for connectivity, payments and commerce.
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That distinction matters financially. A large addressable audience can reduce customer-acquisition friction, but it does not guarantee activation, retention, paid conversion or positive unit economics.
TechCrunch reported the strategy on July 17, 2025, using data from the second quarter of 2025. The figures below should therefore be read as a historical snapshot, not as verified August 2026 performance.
The Airtel deal put distribution ahead of brand-building
Perplexity’s most significant Indian partnership was with Bharti Airtel. According to the report:
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- Airtel customers were offered 12 months of Perplexity Pro at no direct charge.
- Airtel’s subscriber base was cited as approximately 360 million.
- The ordinary value of the 12-month Pro access was described as $200.
- Airtel said the arrangement was exclusive among Indian telecom operators.
The commercial importance was not simply the nominal value of the subscription. Airtel already had billing relationships, mobile distribution, customer communications and a large installed base. Perplexity could potentially reach users through those channels rather than persuading each person to download an unfamiliar AI-search app.
But 360 million subscribers were an addressable audience, not 360 million Perplexity users. The report did not establish how many customers were eligible under specific plan types, redeemed the benefit, used the product regularly or continued after the promotional period.
Those details determine whether the deal creates a durable business or merely a large promotional entitlement pool. Current Airtel eligibility, activation mechanics, payment requirements and renewal terms should not be assumed from the 2025 report.
Perplexity was growing faster—but ChatGPT was still much larger
The Q2 2025 figures reported by TechCrunch and attributed to Sensor Tower illustrate why growth percentages must be interpreted carefully:
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| Metric, Q2 2025 | Perplexity | ChatGPT | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| India downloads | 2.8 million; up 600% year over year | 46.7 million; up 587% | Perplexity grew slightly faster, but ChatGPT’s download volume was far larger |
| India monthly active users | 3.7 million; up 640% | 19.8 million; up 350% | Perplexity grew faster, but ChatGPT had roughly 5.4 times the reported MAUs |
| India in-app purchase revenue | No notable revenue reported | $9 million; up 800% | The monetization gap was wider than the usage gap |
Worldwide, the same report cited estimated Q2 in-app purchase revenue of $773 million for ChatGPT versus $8 million for Perplexity.
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These were Sensor Tower estimates, not company-wide revenue figures. In-app purchases can exclude web subscriptions, enterprise contracts, partner payments and other sources of income. Even with that limitation, the comparison highlights an important distinction:
- Growth rate measures how quickly a smaller base is expanding.
- Absolute users show the size of the installed audience.
- Revenue indicates whether users or partners are paying.
- Profitability requires comparing revenue with inference, infrastructure, support and distribution costs.
Perplexity’s reported growth was impressive. It was not evidence that Perplexity had surpassed ChatGPT in India or globally.
Why India was strategically attractive
India offered Perplexity several structural advantages: a very large internet and smartphone population, mobile-first consumer behavior, extensive telecom reach, a substantial student and professional population, and a rapidly developing AI market.
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The opportunity was broader than finding inexpensive users. Perplexity could use India to:
- build early familiarity with an AI-search product;
- learn from a linguistically and commercially diverse market;
- establish distribution before AI-search habits became fixed;
- reduce its dependence on Western markets;
- create a large audience for future subscriptions, advertising, commerce or enterprise products; and
- strengthen its international-growth narrative for investors.
India was also strategically important to incumbents. The TechCrunch report noted that Google had prioritized the country for AI-search features including AI Mode and AI Overviews. That means Perplexity was not entering an empty market. It was competing against products with existing search habits, operating-system presence, local data and enormous distribution.
Paytm extended the platform strategy
Perplexity also partnered with Paytm to make its AI-powered search available through the fintech app. TechCrunch described Paytm as having more than 500 million downloads and a significant role in India’s digital-payments ecosystem at the time.
The two partnerships served different purposes:
- Airtel: telecom-scale distribution, subscription bundling and potentially low-friction activation.
- Paytm: placement inside a frequently used payments and commerce application.
Together, they represented a platform-distribution strategy. Perplexity was trying to appear where users already spent time, rather than asking them to discover and adopt a new standalone service.
The exact Paytm implementation—such as whether it was a native integration, a link-out or a promotional placement—was not established by the available report. Current availability should be checked separately.
Airtel and Paytm were part of a wider distribution model
TechCrunch reported that Perplexity had partnerships with more than 25 telecom operators globally, including SoftBank in Japan and SK Telecom in South Korea. That suggests the Airtel agreement was part of a repeatable carrier strategy rather than an isolated Indian experiment.
For a young AI company, telecom partnerships can offer three advantages:
- Lower acquisition friction: the service can be presented as a benefit of an existing relationship.
- Higher visibility: carriers control customer messaging, apps, billing touchpoints and plan promotions.
- Potential strategic financing: a partner may subsidize access, use the benefit to reduce churn or negotiate commercial terms.
They also create dependence. The partner may control how prominently the offer is displayed, who qualifies, how renewals are communicated and whether the arrangement is extended. A promotion can generate reach without giving Perplexity an independent, durable customer relationship.
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The Airtel offer had to succeed through several stages:
- An Airtel customer notices the benefit.
- The customer redeems it.
- The customer tries Perplexity.
- The customer uses it repeatedly.
- The customer prefers it to ChatGPT, Google or another tool.
- The customer continues after the free period.
- The customer pays—or creates monetizable activity through another business model.
Attrition can occur at every stage. A subscriber who claims a free benefit but never returns is valuable for a marketing headline, not necessarily for recurring revenue. A user who becomes active during a free year may still leave when a payment method is required.
The reported in-app revenue figures made this conversion question central. Perplexity needed to show not only that partnerships could create usage, but also that usage could become paid subscriptions, advertising opportunities, enterprise leads or another sustainable source of income.
Why affordability complicates conversion
The 2025 report said ChatGPT and Perplexity each had a $20-per-month starting price at the time. That was a historical price signal, not a verified August 2026 price.
A $20 monthly subscription may be difficult for many consumers to justify, particularly when free AI tools, bundled services and advertising-supported alternatives are available. That does not mean Indian users will not pay for AI. It means Perplexity must demonstrate value that is strong enough to overcome free alternatives and must account for local pricing, payment methods, taxes and renewal behavior.
Telecom subsidies can solve the first-use problem. They do not necessarily establish long-term willingness to pay. Airtel or another partner might absorb part of the promotional cost, but that arrangement would still need to produce sufficient retention, customer value or strategic benefit to continue.
Perplexity also had to compete with more than OpenAI
The contest was not simply Perplexity versus ChatGPT. Indian users could choose among:
- Google Search and Google’s AI-search features;
- ChatGPT and other general-purpose assistants;
- Microsoft’s AI search and assistant products;
- Meta’s AI assistant;
- Indian-language and India-focused AI companies;
- open-source or locally hosted models;
- AI features embedded in payments, telecom, productivity and education apps; and
- traditional search engines and social platforms.
Perplexity’s search-first positioning also meant that it had to compete with established search behavior, not just chatbot interfaces. Relevant product questions included the freshness and quality of citations, browsing, research workflows, writing and coding capabilities, voice and multimodal features, ecosystem integration, local-language support and reliability for Indian businesses and locations.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What Aravind Srinivas was trying to build in India
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas announced plans to hire an Indian executive, then paused that effort after receiving what he described as an overwhelming response, according to TechCrunch.
He also announced a $1 million investment and a commitment to spend five hours per week with a group building AI in India. The report further described internal discussions about offering Perplexity to Indian students. That student initiative came from unnamed sources and should not be treated as a confirmed launch or standing offer.
These moves pointed to a broader ambition: build local relationships, recruit talent, develop an India-specific ecosystem and turn distribution into a long-term presence. Partnerships alone can acquire attention; local product, language and business development work may be needed to retain it.
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To judge whether the strategy worked, headline subscriber reach was not enough. The most useful indicators would have been:
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- the percentage of eligible Airtel customers who activated the benefit;
- weekly and monthly retention after activation;
- usage after the free period ended;
- conversion to paid plans;
- revenue per active user;
- inference and support cost per user;
- renewal of the Airtel and Paytm arrangements;
- growth in Indian-language and local-search usage; and
- Perplexity’s share of Indian AI-search activity relative to Google, ChatGPT and other alternatives.
Without those measures, a large distribution agreement could be mistaken for a successful business model.
What readers should verify before claiming a bundled offer
Anyone considering Perplexity through Airtel or another platform should check the actual terms shown in their account. In particular:
- which Airtel plans or customer segments are eligible;
- whether the benefit must be claimed manually;
- whether an existing Perplexity account can be linked;
- whether a payment method is required;
- whether the subscription renews automatically after the promotional period;
- what price applies after the free period;
- which features and usage limits are included; and
- how cancellation and refunds work.
The 2025 reporting does not establish current August 2026 pricing, eligibility or promotion status. For current plan details, readers should consult Perplexity, Perplexity Pro and Airtel’s official site.
How the strategy compares with alternatives
Perplexity is most naturally suited to search-first research and answers organized around sources. ChatGPT may be a stronger fit for users seeking a broad assistant for writing, coding, analysis and multimodal work. Google’s AI products may be more convenient for people already embedded in Search, Android, Gmail, Docs and Drive.
Current prices, regional plans, taxes and features should be checked on the relevant official pages, including ChatGPT’s pricing page and Google One’s plans page. A free carrier promotion can be a low-risk trial, but only if the renewal terms are understood.
The financial verdict
Perplexity’s India strategy made sense as a customer-acquisition and international-distribution play. Airtel offered mass reach, Paytm offered another high-frequency digital channel, and India provided an important market in which AI-search habits were still developing.
But the strategy did not show that Perplexity had caught OpenAI. The reported Q2 2025 data showed faster percentage growth from a much smaller base, while ChatGPT led Perplexity by a wide margin in Indian downloads, monthly active users and in-app revenue.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11India could be a shortcut to users. It was not automatically a shortcut to sustainable economics. Perplexity’s success depended on converting subsidized access into durable habits, paid customers or another revenue stream while controlling the cost of serving them.
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