OpenAI India Managing Director Prabhjeet Singh told The Economic Times that India ranks first in weekly active ChatGPT users, while describing the challenge of turning usage into paid subscriptions.
Singh said the Indian audience had grown to twice its Jan. 2026 size, but gave no January baseline or current weekly-user count. He linked the increase to people finding “relevance and deep use cases.”
OpenAI said Feb. 18 that India had more than 100 million weekly ChatGPT users. That dated figure is the company’s earlier count; the interview offered no updated total. The Economic Times published the detailed interview report Nov. 3.
The February count and Singh’s later comments describe different things: OpenAI reported an absolute number, while Singh supplied a market ranking and a comparison with January. Without the earlier baseline, the claimed doubling cannot be converted into a newer headcount. The interview also did not quantify how many Indian users pay for ChatGPT.
OpenAI said the February announcement was part of OpenAI for India, an initiative it said would work with partners including Tata Group on business adoption, workforce training and local AI infrastructure. The company separately said it would become the first customer of Tata Consultancy Services’ HyperVault data-center business. Capacity is planned to begin at 100 megawatts, with potential to reach 1 gigawatt.
Singh described Indian businesses moving AI work from pilots and demonstrations into production. He provided no count for customers or deployments. He said trust, security and confidence in returns on investment were factors in enterprise adoption.
Singh also said OpenAI’s challenge was to convert active users into paid subscribers as people found practical applications for the service. He said the company expected announcements concerning India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and payments in the coming weeks, without giving a date or product details.
