Perplexity sees India as a shortcut in its race against OpenAI

While Openai cemented its lead in the United States, perplexity makes a different route – quietly expand to India to compete in the next phase of AI adoption. The Search Focus AI startup is rapidly adding millions of users in the world’s second largest online and smart market, placing itself for a mass market scale.

This week, perplexity partnered with Bharti AirtelIndia’s second largest telecommunications operator after Reliance Jio, to offer a free 12-month perplexed pro-subscriber usually worth $ 200-to all 360 million Airtel subscribers. Airtel confirmed to Techcrunch that the deal is exclusive, which means that no other Telko in the country can offer the perplexity services, including free access, to their subscribers.

The Airtel Partnership is one of the most significant moves of perplexity however in a global expansion strategy, which includes partnerships with over 25 Telcos worldwide, including those recently announced with SoftBank in Japan And SK Telecom in South Korea. It comes to volume. India, the world’s most populous country, brings a mass market that the San Francisco-based start will not be found in other geographies.

Perplexity already gains significant traction in the country. In Q2, perplexity downloads in India increased 600% per year after year to 2.8 million, according to Sensor Tower data shared exclusively with Techcrunch. By comparison, Openai’s Chatgpt saw 587% growth, reaching 46.7 million downloads in the same period.

The growth trend has also extended to active users: Perplexity’s monthly active users (MAUs) in India increased by 640% a year after year in Q2, while Chatgpt’s MAUs grew by 350%. India was also Maus’s largest market for perplexity in the last quarter, along a sensory tower. However, Chatgpt maintained a significant lead in absolute numbers, with 19.8 million Mau against 3.7 million for perplexity.

Based on earlier partnerships, perplexity worked to exploit India’s user base to skip Western markets, where Openai dominates paid subscribers. Earlier this year, perplexity partnered With the Indian Fintech giant Paytm to offer access to its AI-driven search through the PayTM program, which has over 500 million downloads and is among the Top three programs on the unified payment interface of the Indian government Network, processing of 1.2 billion transactions with more than ₹ 1.34,000 crore (about $ 15.6 billion).

Aravind Srinivas, general manager of perplexity, also took direct steps to expand in India. In January, he announced plans to hire Indian executive in the country he later seized after receiving “Overwhelming” response. He on announced an investment of $ 1 million and a commitment of five hours a week from their time to a group building AI in India.

The starting also internally discussed by offering their search engine AI to Indian students to grow their achievement, sources told Techcrunch.

One reason perplexingly looks at India as a key growth market is the relatively Limited number of local AI -Startsespecially in the search space AI. At the same time, the country has a large and active basis of technological user facts, which even prompted the archive of Perplexity, Google, launch AI operating searches such as AI -mode And Ai -overlaps in India before many other markets.

Monetizing this great user base remains a challenge. Perplexity still stays far behind ChatGPT worldwide in revenue, even as both offer the same $ 20-month starting price. In Q2, Chatgpt’s in-app purchase worldwide grew 731% per year after a year to $ 773 million, while perplexity saw 300% growth, reaching $ 8 million, by a sensory tower.

The income challenge is particularly sharp in India, where consumers are notably Price-sensitive. However, there are promising signs. Chatgpt has seen 800% year-on-year growth from in-app purchases to $ 9 million in the country in Q2. Perplexity did not generate any notable in-app revenues from India, but the startup has a room to expand its paid signature through India. Deals like that with Airtel could help perplexity effectively increase its subscription base, at least soon.

Strategic partnerships in markets such as India could help puzzle catch the eye of investors who value users’ growth and geographical diversification. But to make that attention in a long -term backup, the startup will have to show that it can convert its expansion user base into revenue.

Srinivas did not respond to requests for comment.