OpenAI is offering a free year of its ChatGPT Go plan to users in India who sign up during a limited promotional period starting November 4, as the company looks to expand in one of its top markets.
OpenAI announced the promotion on Tuesday, but did not specify how long the offer would be available. The company said that existing ChatGPT Go subscribers in India will also have access to a 12-month free plan.
ChatGPT Go launched in India in August as OpenAI’s most affordable paid subscription plan, priced at less than $5 per month. The service was later expanded to Indonesia and earlier this month to 16 more countries in Asia.
India is the world’s most populous country with over 700 million smartphone users and over 1 billion internet subscribers, making it a key market for OpenAI. The company opened a New Delhi office in August and is currently building a local team to expand its presence.
Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said India was the company’s second-largest market after the United States, but monetizing ChatGPT’s paid plans in the country has proven difficult. The app was downloaded more than 29 million times in the 90 days ending in August, but generated just $3.6 million in in-app purchases during that period, according to Appfigures data reviewed by TechCrunch at the time.
ChatGPT Go offers 10x more usage than the free version when it comes to generating responses, creating images, and uploading files. OpenAI says memory has also been improved for more personalized responses.
“Since we first launched ChatGPT Go in India a few months ago, we have been inspired by the adoption and creativity from our users,” Nick Turley, vice president and head of ChatGPT, said in a statement. “We’re excited to see people build, learn, and accomplish great things with these tools.”
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OpenAI rivals such as Perplexity and Google are also looking to tap into India’s large and youthful user base. Perplexity recently partnered with Airtel to offer a free Perplexity Pro subscription to the telco’s 360 million subscribers. Similarly, Google has introduced a free 1-year AI Pro plan for students in India.
OpenAI is scheduled to hold a DevDay Exchange developer conference in Bengaluru on November 4th, where there will be India-specific announcements aimed at local developers and enterprises.
