After introducing its new affordable ChatGPT Go subscription, OpenAI is now making it available for free to users in India. Starting on November 4, users will be able to claim the ChatGPT Go plan for free for a year as part of a limited-time promotional offer. With this, the company hopes to grow its user base in one of its fastest-growing markets.
The company confirmed the rollout on Tuesday, but did not specify how long the promotion would last. Existing ChatGPT Go subscribers in India will also receive free 12-month access, according to OpenAI.
For those unfamiliar, OpenAI introduced the ChatGPT Go plan in India in August as the most affordable subscription tier, costing less than $5 per month. The plan provides a slew of advantages, including increased usage limits for generating responses, creating images, and uploading files, as well as improved memory for more personalised interactions. The service was later made available in Indonesia, and more recently, in 16 other Asian countries.
This appears to be an excellent strategic move, as India is a strategic market for OpenAI, with over 700 million smartphone users and more than a billion internet subscribers. The company even established its first India office in New Delhi earlier this year and is currently building a local team. However, monetisation is still a challenge. Despite over 29 million app downloads between May and August, ChatGPT only generated $3.6 million in in-app purchases, according to Appfigures data cited by TechCrunch.
Additionally, OpenAI is gearing up for its DevDay Exchange conference in Bengaluru on November 4, where it plans to make India-specific announcements for developers and enterprises. According to the company, India is one of the largest and fastest-growing ChatGPT markets, with millions of users engaged on a daily basis across education, business, and creativity.
On the other hand, competitors such as Perplexity have recently partnered with Airtel to provide free Perplexity Pro access to its 360 million users. While Google has begun offering a free one-year AI Pro subscription to students in the country.