Perplexity's Airtel Bundle Drove 56 Million Downloads in India, Then Dropped 90% When the Free Offer Ended

Perplexity's decision to bundle a free Pro subscription with Bharti Airtel pushed app downloads in India to 56 million over seven months, then saw them fall by more than 90% after the offer closed to new users on January 16. The figures, published by TechCrunch on August 18, 2026, give the clearest look yet at a strategy that traded near-term revenue for user growth at a scale not previously seen in the AI sector.

The partnership, announced July 17, 2025, gave all 360 million of Airtel's customers — across prepaid, postpaid, broadband, and DTH (direct-to-home satellite TV) — a 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription at no cost. The subscription was valued at ₹17,000, roughly $200 USD. Perplexity's help center confirms the terms: eligible users received twelve months of complimentary Pro access, distributed through promotional codes via partners and authorized channels.

The immediate impact was large. Perplexity recorded 5.9 million app downloads in India in July 2025 alone, a 625% jump from the prior month, according to Sensor Tower data. Monthly active users more than doubled to 8.9 million in July and peaked at 22 million in October 2025. Over the seven months the Airtel offer stayed open, total downloads reached 56 million, more than nine times the preceding seven-month period.

Then the window closed. Between February and July 2026, after new redemptions ended on January 16, downloads fell to 3.3 million, down more than 90% from the preceding six months. Perplexity ended the bundled Pro offer with Airtel in January 2026, part of a broader pattern in which AI companies operating in India traded short-term revenue for user growth.

Perplexity was not alone in pursuing telecom-bundled distribution. Google partnered with Reliance Jio in October 2025 to offer free AI Pro access to millions of Jio users. OpenAI, which had opened a New Delhi office in August 2025, offered free ChatGPT Go access in India that was no longer available as of February 2026. Anthropic hired the former managing director of Microsoft India in January 2026 to lead its Bengaluru expansion. Taken together, the moves signaled that Western AI companies viewed India's mobile-first user base as a critical acquisition channel, and that telecom partnerships were the primary lever.

The trajectory from 5.9 million monthly downloads to 3.3 million over six months is the central data point. It shows the mechanics of subsidy-driven growth: when the free offer ends, the acquisition curve reverses just as steeply. The users who stick around are the ones who found lasting value in the product; the ones who leave were, in effect, using a service they would not pay for directly.

The question that follows is whether the retained users, even at a fraction of peak, form a durable base. Perplexity did not disclose retention or conversion metrics for the Airtel cohort. Sensor Tower's install data captures downloads but not engagement quality, subscription conversions after the free period, or churn rates (the rate at which users stop using the app). What the data does establish is that the cost of acquiring those 56 million installs was substantial: at the subscription's stated value of ₹17,000 per year, the forgone revenue from each redeemed subscription was real, even if the marginal cost of serving an additional user on Perplexity's infrastructure is low.

The Indian market's competitive density adds to the retention challenge. Google's Jio partnership, OpenAI's Delhi presence, and Anthropic's Bengaluru buildout all point to the same user base being courted at the same time. Users who got Perplexity Pro through Airtel also had access to free offerings from competitors during overlapping periods. The product that retains users in this environment is the one that earns habitual use, not the one that arrived via the most generous bundle.

The broader context here is a familiar pattern in technology distribution. Telecom bundling as an acquisition strategy has a long history, from preinstalled carrier apps on feature phones to zero-rated data offerings (free access to specific services that don't count against a user's data plan) during the mobile internet transition. The pattern is consistent: distribution partnerships compress the adoption curve sharply upward, then sharply downward when the subsidy ends. What differs here is the speed of the cycle. The Airtel-Perplexity partnership went from launch to peak to 90% decline inside twelve months, a pace that reflects both the frictionless nature of app distribution and the intensity of competing free offers in the Indian AI market.

Perplexity's challenge now is converting the remaining users, whatever their number, into paying subscribers or ad-supported engagement that justifies the acquisition cost. The company has not disclosed those figures. The data available tells the story of acquisition at scale and the cliff that follows, but not yet the story of what remains at the bottom.