Perplexity’s Airtel promotion leaves a larger user base in India
Perplexity’s free 12-month Pro offer through Indian telecom operator Airtel generated 56 million downloads in India while new redemptions were available, leaving the AI search company with a substantially larger active audience after the promotion ended. Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, offered the service, normally priced at about $200 a year, to its 360 million customers from July 2025; new claims ended on January 16.
Sensor Tower estimates that Perplexity logged 5.9 million Indian app downloads in July 2025 alone, a 625% increase from June and more than the 5.4 million downloads accumulated during the entire first half of that year. Monthly active users more than doubled to 8.9 million in July and reached a peak of about 22 million in October.
Downloads dropped after the offer closed
The promotion’s effect on acquisition was clear once the claim window closed. Sensor Tower estimates Perplexity received 3.3 million downloads in India between February and July, more than 90% below the preceding six months. Yet the active-user decline was less severe: monthly active users were nearly 14 million in July, down 37% from their October peak but more than five times the roughly 2.6 million average in the first half of 2025.
Appfigures found a similarly sharp change in Perplexity’s trajectory. Average daily downloads rose from around 11,200 in the week before the Airtel offer to nearly 223,000 in its first week, then averaged about 305,000 a day between mid-September and mid-October. Appfigures said ChatGPT and Claude downloads remained broadly stable over the comparison period, suggesting the rise was specific to Perplexity rather than a general increase in demand for AI apps.
Revenue data offers an early, qualified signal
Sensor Tower estimates Perplexity’s Indian in-app purchase and subscription revenue between February and mid-August increased about 60% compared with the period in which new Airtel claims were available. From about July 18 to August 12, average daily in-app purchase revenue was 9% above the prior 30 days and 27% higher than the average for the first half of 2026.
The data does not establish how many Airtel users deliberately converted to paid subscriptions. Free Pro accounts were set to auto-renew, so some revenue may come from customers who did not opt out before renewal. Sensor Tower cannot separate former Airtel subscribers from other paying users or distinguish intentional renewals from missed cancellations.
Appfigures estimates Perplexity’s monthly net mobile revenue in India rose from about $34,000 in January 2025 to $70,000 in December, reaching $156,000 in July 2026. Its estimated first-seven-month revenue for 2026 was $878,000, 16% above all of 2025. The pattern arrives as Claude gains paid users against ChatGPT illustrates how paid-user growth remains central to competition among leading AI services.
India becomes a test case for bundled AI access
India is the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with more than 700 million users, and has become the largest market for generative AI app downloads. Its scale is difficult to monetise, however, which has encouraged providers to test lower-priced plans, free access and distribution partnerships. OpenAI made ChatGPT Go free for a year in India in August 2025, while Google offered eligible Reliance Jio users 18 months of AI Pro access.
Perplexity’s Airtel partnership began ahead of those comparable offers, making it an early indication of what can happen when a large cohort reaches the end of a free premium period. For businesses considering bundled AI trials, the practical implication is to track active use, renewal mechanics and revenue over successive expiry cohorts before treating a large acquisition surge as proven long-term monetisation.