Perplexity Overthrows ChatGPT To Become No. 1 iOS App In India, Boosted By Airtel Offer

Just a day after Bharti Airtel offered a free 12-month subscription of Perplexity Pro to its over 36 crore Indian users, the Perplexity app has experienced an unprecedented surge in downloads in the country, particularly on iOS.

The Airtel promotional deal has propelled Perplexity to the top spot in the App Store in India, nudging OpenAI’s ChatGPT from the pole position. The milestone was highlighted by Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas through a post on LinkedIn.

“Perplexity is now the #1 overall app on the App Store in India, ahead of ChatGPT,” Srinivas declared in his post.

Notably, Perplexity has been on the App Store for several months. The app provides access to Perplexity’s free and Pro features, including enhanced search features, access to large language models like GPT-4.1, Claude, and Grok 4 by xAI, image generation, research tools, greater daily limits, along with the Labs functionality. 

Although it serves as an AI-driven web search engine, it has not managed to surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store rankings. However, the Airtel collaboration did the trick.

The Indian telecom operator announced a day before that Perplexity Pro, the paid version of the app, will be available at scale. Perplexity Pro is normally priced at Rs 17,000 annually.

Through the Airtel offer, users can now enjoy a year-long subscription at no cost, which made more users sign up and experience the service. While Perplexity Pro can be availed through Safari or Chrome browsers as well, downloads from the App Stores saw a huge upsurge after the offer.

Airtel has said that the collaboration seeks to provide AI-driven search capabilities to all of its users, including students, professionals, and families.

Srinivas added, “This partnership is an exciting way to make accurate, trustworthy, and professional-grade AI accessible to more people in India—whether they are students, working professionals, or managing a household.”