Perplexity in India faces the payment test as free millions reach the end of its one-year Airtel partnership

The results of one of the largest growth experiments in the artificial intelligence market have begun to surface on the ground, as the first free subscriptions to Perplexity Pro granted to customers of Indian telecom operator Airtel reach expiration. The partnership, launched in July 2025, provided an annual subscription valued at roughly $200 to the Indian carrier's customer base of 360 million subscribers before new activations halted on January 16. Today, the startup faces its first real test of whether distribution deals and free subscription bundles can produce enduring users and sustained cash revenue once the giveaway period ends.

Data from analytics platform Sensor Tower showed that the promotion produced an immediate surge in India, with the app recording 5.9 million downloads in July 2025 alone, representing 625 percent growth over the previous month, surpassing the 5.4 million total downloads achieved across the entire first half of that year. Momentum did not stop with the launch month; the app accumulated 56 million downloads over the seven months the offer was available to new users, more than nine times the figure for the comparable preceding period. Monthly active users doubled to 8.9 million in July, peaking at 22 million active users in October 2025.

Although download volume fell by more than 90 percent between February and July to around 3.3 million downloads after the free claim window closed, the active user base showed notable resilience. The platform recorded roughly 14 million monthly active users in July, and while that figure is down 37 percent from the October peak, it remains five times higher than the first half 2025 average of 2.6 million users.Sustained usage demonstrated marked resilience after the promotional rush passed, leaving the company with a footprint far larger than before the partnership.

The most notable shift involved in-app spending and subscription revenue, with Sensor Tower estimates indicating that in-app purchase and subscription revenue in India rose 60 percent between February and mid-August compared to the period when the promotion was active. From July 18 through August 12, average daily revenue rose 9 percent compared to the preceding thirty days, and 27 percent above the first half 2026 average. Still, analyses suggest that automatic subscription renewal, which requires customers to cancel to avoid charges, leaves open the possibility that a portion of the revenue stems from users who failed to cancel in time rather than a deliberate transition to paid use.

For its part, data from Appfigures confirmed that the surge was specific to Perplexity rather than a reflection of general demand for artificial intelligence apps, with average daily downloads rising from 11,200 to roughly 223,000 in the first week of the partnership, reaching 305,000 daily downloads between mid-September and mid-October, while downloads of ChatGPT and Claude remained largely flat. The figures show that the company's net monthly mobile revenue in India grew from around $34,000 in January 2025 to $70,000 in December, before climbing to $156,000 in July 2026, generating $878,000 for the company in the first seven months of 2026, a 16 percent increase over total revenue for all of 2025.

The bet on offering artificial intelligence services for free to establish consumer habits in price-sensitive markets is now facing its real test in India.India is the world's second-largest smartphone market after China, with more than 700 million users, and has over one billion internet subscribers, yet it remains a difficult market for direct monetization. Perplexity's move preceded similar initiatives, such as OpenAI offering its ChatGPT Go plan free for a full year and Google providing an 18-month free AI Pro subscription to Reliance Jio customers, making Perplexity's trajectory an early gauge of whether trading short-term profits for distribution can truly produce regular paying subscribers.