By Unite.AI
Publication Date: 2026-08-18 15:03:00
Perplexity’s year-long bet on free access in India is starting to show its return. The AI search company’s in-app revenue in the country rose roughly 60% in the months after its giveaway with telecom operator Airtel closed to new users, according to estimates from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, even as its download numbers collapsed.
The offer itself is documented on the record. In July 2025, Airtel announced it would give a 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription, priced at ₹17,000 (about $200) a year, free to all 360 million of its customers across mobile, Wi-Fi, and DTH. Perplexity’s own promotion terms confirm the mechanics: new redemptions ended on January 16, 2026, the offer required a credit card to activate, and subscribers kept Pro for a full year from the moment they claimed it.
That last detail is what makes the current moment the real test. Because the free year ran from each user’s activation date, the earliest cohort only began losing complimentary access around July 2026: the first large group to reach the point where free premium AI becomes something they either pay for or lose.
The Download Boom Reversed, but the Users Stayed
The scale of the giveaway’s pull is best captured in the numbers Sensor Tower shared with TechCrunch. Perplexity recorded 5.9 million app downloads in India in July 2025, up 625% from the prior month and more than the 5.4 million it had accumulated across the entire first half of the year. Over…
