This paper discusses product marketing strategies for Skype in the Indian semi-urban markets. The study was conducted in Bhilai and Durg, the two burgeoning twin-cities in Chattisgarh. Using cluster analysis, it was discovered that there was a 40% market for Skype in Bhilai and Durg. The study would be valuable for generating insights on developing new products for small cities that forms a large and scattered chunk of Indian consumers.

Skype is becoming popular all over the world because of providing low cost international calls and chat all over the world. The number of Skype customers has grown to 220 million in June 30, 2007. Recently, Skype launched its mobile phone in India through a tie-up with Hutch (now Vodafone) and Airtel. SMC networks are also coming up with a Skype phone having capability to call internationally at a very low cost (approximately Re. 1 per minute). However, Skype phones cannot be marketed directly in India particularly in semi-urban cities.

Various reasons prevent the usage of Skype in these semi-urban cities. Prominent among them is the lack of users who would want to make international calls exclusively. Moreover, the access to Wi-Fi is limited to select institutions (such as educational institutions) in these cities. Lastly, the users would not purchase a mobile phone exclusively to make international calls. In other words, Skype phones should be substantially modified so that they are suited for these semi-urban markets.

Therefore, in this paper an attempt has been made to identify modifications or strategies that Skype can adopt to make its product suited to Indian semi-urban markets which form a large chunk (81.1 million) of Indian consumers.

Business Strategy Journal, low cost international calls, Skype customers, mobile phone in India, Hutch, Vodafone, Airtel, SMC networks, semi-urban cities, educational institutions, semi-urban markets, strategies that Skype, make its product, Indian consumers, competitive market, Mobile Handset Market, NASDAQ, mobile phoneringtones, battery backup, network, voice quality, call waiting facility, SMS facility, security facility, GSM/CDMA facility, GPRS facility, camera facility, torch facility, Internet connectivity