India is now ChatGPT’s largest market, says OpenAI’s India head

AI NewsIshaan VardhanNov 10, 20269 min read

India is now ChatGPT’s largest market in the world by weekly active users, ahead of the United States, OpenAI’s India managing director Prabhjeet Singh told The Economic Times in an interview reported on 3 November 2026. He said the Indian user base has doubled since January 2026, nine months after Sam Altman called India ChatGPT’s second-largest market with 100 million weekly users.

OpenAI has not published a new Indian user count, and weekly users are not the same as paying customers. Below is what was said, how the numbers moved, what Indians actually use ChatGPT for, and why the revenue picture looks very different.

Key takeaways

• OpenAI India MD Prabhjeet Singh says India has overtaken the US as ChatGPT’s largest market by weekly active users, and that the local base has doubled since January 2026, according to Inc42’s report of his Economic Times interview (3 November 2026).
• In February 2026 Sam Altman put India at 100 million weekly users and second behind the US, according to TechCrunch.
• OpenAI’s own India usage report shows Indians lean towards coding, data analysis and learning, and that users aged 18 to 34 send about 80% of consumer messages.
• Users are not revenue: India drove roughly 20% of global generative AI app downloads but about 1% of in-app purchase revenue, according to Sensor Tower data reported by TechCrunch in February 2026.

What OpenAI said about India this month

OpenAI’s India head Prabhjeet Singh said India now has more weekly active ChatGPT users than any other country, including the US. Inc42, citing his interview with The Economic Times, reported on 3 November 2026 that he credited the growth to people building ChatGPT into daily work and finding new uses for it.

Singh did not give an absolute user number in the reports we read. The only figure attached to the claim is that the Indian base has doubled since January 2026. That leaves the exact size unknown, so we are not putting a number on it.

He also said, according to Inc42, that OpenAI expects paid subscriptions to grow, that ads are expanding in India to fund free and low-cost access, and that UPI and payments announcements will follow in the coming weeks.

How India went from second to first

India moved from ChatGPT’s second-largest market to its largest in about nine months, between February and November 2026. The table below sets out the public milestones in order.

India and ChatGPT: public milestones. Sources: Open Source For You (Aug 2025), TechCrunch (Oct 2025, Feb 2026), Inc42 (Nov 2026).

Scroll the table sideways →

Altman’s February figure came in a Times of India column ahead of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. TechCrunch reported on 15 February 2026 that the 100 million count covered free and paid users, and that India also had more student users of ChatGPT than any other country.

Note that the Sensor Tower figure is monthly active users while OpenAI’s figures are weekly. The two measures are not directly comparable.

The free year of ChatGPT Go did a lot of the work

The free year of ChatGPT Go is the most obvious push behind India’s growth in 2026. OpenAI launched Go in India in August 2025 at ₹399 a month, with UPI payments, according to Open Source For You, and then made it free for a year for Indian users who signed up from 4 November 2025, TechCrunch reported on 27 October 2025.

TechCrunch said Go offered about ten times the usage of the free plan.

Those free years are now ending account by account. Our guide to the ChatGPT Go free year ending explains the renewal price, how to check your own date and how to cancel.

What Indians use ChatGPT for

Indian ChatGPT users skew towards coding, data analysis and learning compared with the rest of the world. OpenAI’s February 2026 report How India uses ChatGPT, part of its Signals research series, gives these figures:

• Indian users ask coding questions at nearly three times the global median rate, and learning and education questions at nearly twice the median.
• Plus and Pro subscribers in India use the data analysis tool about four times as much as the global median, and Codex, OpenAI’s coding tool, about three times as much.
• About 35% of consumer messages in India relate to work, against about 30% globally.
• Outside work, a little over 35% of messages ask for practical guidance, about 20% seek information and nearly a fifth are about writing.
• Users aged 18 to 24 send just under half of all messages in India, against about a third globally; 18 to 34-year-olds together send about 80%.

The report also found that Telangana and Karnataka, home to Hyderabad and Bengaluru, rank first and second for use of OpenAI’s coding tools, with Tamil Nadu third. Singh said this month that India is one of Codex’s fastest-growing markets, according to Inc42.

OpenAI’s offices, data centre and education push in India

OpenAI is building a physical presence in India: offices, local compute and training programmes. It opened its first office in New Delhi in August 2025, TechCrunch reported, and at the February 2026 summit it said offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru would follow later in the year, Business Today reported on 19 February 2026.

The same Business Today report said OpenAI would be the first customer of Tata Consultancy Services’ HyperVault data centre business, starting with 100 megawatts of capacity that could grow to 1 gigawatt. Tata Group also plans to roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to employees, starting with TCS staff.

On education, OpenAI launched a Learning Accelerator in August 2025 with nearly 500,000 ChatGPT licences for students and teachers through the Ministry of Education, AICTE and ARISE, plus a $500,000 research grant to IIT Madras, according to Open Source For You. If you want to work on this from the inside, OpenAI’s open roles are on our OpenAI jobs page.

The competition: Gemini, Perplexity and Indian models

ChatGPT leads India’s AI assistant market, but Google Gemini is the closest rival by a wide margin over everyone else. Sensor Tower data reported by TechCrunch on 24 February 2026 put January 2026 monthly active users in India at 180 million for ChatGPT, 118 million for Gemini, 19 million for Perplexity and 12 million for Meta AI.

Google has fought with free offers of its own. It gave Indian students a free year of its AI Pro plan in September 2025, TechCrunch reported, and its India subscriptions page lists Google AI Plus at ₹399 a month, the same price as ChatGPT Go, and AI Pro at ₹1,950 a month, as checked on Google’s Gemini subscriptions page on 9 November 2026. Airtel’s free Perplexity Pro bundle ended in January 2026, according to TechCrunch.

Indian-built models are the other front. Bengaluru’s Sarvam launched its Indus chat app in beta on 20 February 2026, running on its own 105-billion-parameter model, TechCrunch reported, and the government-backed BharatGen consortium unveiled its 17-billion-parameter Param2 model covering 22 Indian languages, according to Business Today. We compare them in detail in our guide to Indian AI models.

Users are not revenue

India being ChatGPT’s biggest market by users does not make it OpenAI’s biggest market by revenue, and the gap is large. TechCrunch, citing Sensor Tower, reported in February 2026 that India drove roughly 20% of global generative AI app downloads but only about 1% of in-app purchase revenue.

The same report said AI app in-app revenue in India fell 22% month on month in November 2025 and 18% in December 2025 as free offers spread, with ChatGPT’s own revenue down 33% and 32% in those months, though ChatGPT still took more than 60% of generative AI in-app revenue in India. None of the reports we read gives an Indian subscriber count or an Indian revenue figure for OpenAI.

That explains the timing of the new moves. Ads in India, a Razorpay partnership to help brands run campaigns on ChatGPT and the promised UPI and payments announcements, all reported by Inc42, are ways to earn money from a very large audience that mostly does not pay.

Why it matters

For Indian founders, a market where most people already reach for ChatGPT every week changes the starting point: users arrive knowing what an AI assistant does, and products built on top of OpenAI, Gemini or Indian models face less explaining. For OpenAI, the harder test starts now, as the free Go years expire and it has to show that a market won on scale can also pay. Watch three things over the next few months: how many Go users renew at ₹399, what the UPI announcement turns out to be, and whether OpenAI ever publishes an Indian revenue or subscriber figure.

FAQ

Is India ChatGPT’s largest market?

Yes, by weekly active users, according to OpenAI India MD Prabhjeet Singh in an Economic Times interview reported by Inc42 on 3 November 2026. He said India had overtaken the United States and that the Indian base had doubled since January 2026. OpenAI has not said India is its largest market by revenue, and no Indian revenue figure has been published.

How many people use ChatGPT in India?

The last exact figure OpenAI gave was 100 million weekly active users, from Sam Altman in February 2026, according to TechCrunch. In November 2026 OpenAI said the base had doubled since January without giving a new number. Sensor Tower separately counted 180 million monthly active users in January 2026, a different measure.

What do Indians mostly use ChatGPT for?

OpenAI’s February 2026 India report found Indians ask coding questions at nearly three times the global median and learning questions at nearly twice the median. About 35% of messages relate to work. Outside work, practical guidance, information and writing are the biggest categories, and users aged 18 to 34 send about 80% of messages.

Is ChatGPT Go still free in India?

No. The offer covered Indian users who signed up from 4 November 2025, and each free year lasts 12 months from redemption, so they are ending now. After that, Go renews at ₹399 a month unless you cancel, as our ChatGPT Go guide explains.

Sources

1. Inc42, “India Becomes ChatGPT’s Largest Market Globally, User Base Doubles Since January”, 3 November 2026. Link
2. TechCrunch, “India has 100M weekly active ChatGPT users, Sam Altman says”, 15 February 2026. Link
3. TechCrunch, “OpenAI offers free ChatGPT Go for one year to all users in India”, 27 October 2025. Link
4. TechCrunch, “India’s AI boom pushes firms to trade near-term revenue for users”, 24 February 2026. Link
5. TechCrunch, “India’s Sarvam launches Indus AI chat app as competition heats up”, 20 February 2026. Link
6. OpenAI, “How India uses ChatGPT” (OpenAI Signals), February 2026. Link
7. Business Today, “OpenAI partners with TCS on AI deployment, plans new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru”, 19 February 2026. Link
8. Open Source For You, “OpenAI Debuts Learning Accelerator, IIT Madras Tie-Up At Education Summit”, 26 August 2025. Link
9. Google, “Gemini subscriptions (India)”, checked 9 November 2026. Link
10. Business Today, “‘Most real-world use cases don’t need trillion-parameter AI’: BharatGen CEO Rishi Bal on Param 2 launch”, 16 February 2026. Link

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Sources (10)

1. Inc42 (citing The Economic Times) 3 Nov 2026Singh: India largest by WAU, doubled since Jan 2026; ads; UPI/payments coming; Codex tier-II; TCS HyperVault; Bedrock; Razorpay Engage
2. TechCrunch 15 Feb 2026Altman: 100M WAU, second to US, free+paid, most student users; Delhi office Aug 2025; Google free AI Pro for students
3. TechCrunch 27 Oct 2025Go free year from 4 Nov 2025; 10x usage; Appfigures 29M downloads, $3.6M IAP in 90 days to Aug
4. TechCrunch (Sensor Tower data) 24 Feb 2026Jan 2026 MAU ChatGPT 180M, Gemini 118M, Perplexity 19M, Meta AI 12M; ~20% downloads vs ~1% IAP revenue; revenue declines; ChatGPT >60% share; Airtel offer ended
5. TechCrunch 20 Feb 2026Sarvam Indus beta launch on 105B model
6. OpenAI 1 Feb 2026India usage: coding ~3x, education ~2x median; data analysis ~4x, Codex ~3x (Plus/Pro); 35% work vs 30%; age split; Telangana/Karnataka/TN
7. Business Today 19 Feb 2026TCS HyperVault 100MW to 1GW; ChatGPT Enterprise for Tata; certifications; Mumbai and Bengaluru offices
8. Open Source For You 26 Aug 2025Learning Accelerator ~500,000 licences; $500K IIT Madras grant; Go ₹399 with UPI
9. Google 9 Nov 2026Google AI Plus ₹399/month, AI Pro ₹1,950/month in India
10. Business Today 16 Feb 2026BharatGen Param2 17B, 22 Indian languages