Perplexity rolled out a year‑long free subscription to its premium Pro tier for Airtel customers in July 2025, bundling a $200 service with the telecom’s massive user base. The deal, which covered any of Airtel’s 360 million subscribers who redeemed the offer before Jan. 16, gave users a full year of Pro access starting from activation.
Within the launch month, the app surged to 5.9 million downloads in India, a 625 percent jump from June and more than the total it had amassed in the first half of 2025. Over the seven months the offer remained open, total downloads climbed to 56 million—nine times the previous seven‑month period, according to Sensor Tower. Monthly active users more than doubled to 8.9 million in July and peaked at roughly 22 million in October.
When the redemption window closed, the influx of new users evaporated. Sensor Tower estimates only 3.3 million downloads occurred between February and July, a drop of more than 90 percent from the prior six months. Yet the user base did not collapse. By July, active users still numbered about 14 million, down 37 percent from the October high but still five times the 2.6 million average recorded earlier in the year.
Revenue climbs despite download slump
Even as download volume plummeted, Perplexity’s in‑app purchase and subscription revenue in India rose roughly 60 percent from the period when the Airtel promotion was active to the February‑mid‑August window. Daily average revenue between July 18 and Aug. 12 was 9 percent higher than the preceding 30 days and 27 percent above the first‑half‑2026 average. The uptick suggests that a segment of users who grew accustomed to Pro features may be willing to pay once the free year ends.
Appfigures corroborates the growth story, showing that Perplexity’s monthly net mobile revenue in India grew from about $34,000 in Jan. 2025 to $70,000 in Dec. 2025 and hit $156,000 in July 2026. The company generated an estimated $878,000 in the first seven months of 2026, a 16 percent increase over all of 2025.
Both analytics firms caution against assuming the revenue boost stems solely from former Airtel users converting to paid plans. Sensor Tower notes the auto‑renewal mechanism required users to cancel to avoid charges, meaning some revenue may reflect users who simply missed the deadline. Appfigures points out that the promotion’s visibility likely attracted paying customers who never participated in the free trial.
The experiment places Perplexity among the first AI firms to test whether a large‑scale free‑premium offering can translate into lasting monetization in India. OpenAI and Google later rolled out comparable free‑for‑a‑year plans for Indian carriers, but Perplexity’s deal arrived months earlier, providing an early data point for the industry.
India remains the world’s second‑largest smartphone market and a leading source of generative‑AI app downloads, yet converting that scale into revenue has proven challenging. Perplexity’s experience shows that a high‑visibility giveaway can dramatically expand a user base and lift revenue, even as the initial download surge fades. Whether the newly acquired users will stay on as paying subscribers after the free year ends will become clearer as later cohorts of Airtel customers reach their renewal dates.
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