The Indian market has become extremely attractive to all the large tech firms, as they can extend their products for the developing markets keeping India as a benchmark. YouTube launched YouTube Go, Facebook’s Messenger Lite and LinkedIn Lite are a few such examples.
Now, Microsoft-owned Skype has also joined this league by launching Skype Lite, a simpler, cleaner and lighter version of its original telephony service. Exclusively launched for India on 22nd February, Skype Lite is a little under 13mb in size, the app includes all services – video calling, texting, voice calling and skype bots.
At Microsoft’s Future Decoded Conference in Mumbai, CEO Satya Nadella announced Skype Lite for India. It has been touted as the fastest and smallest app to date, built in India, for users in India.
“Skype Lite is designed to deliver a great Skype performance in challenging network conditions, use less data, less power and enable more users to take advantage of free Skype to Skype calls. It is available in seven local languages: Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu,” the blog post read.
Skype Lite contains many new features which have been specifically designed with this market in mind. This includes SMS filtering, mobile data and Wi-Fi usage monitoring and India focused Skype Bots, which is a good retention from the original app.
What’s the advantage of Skype Lite?
Just like other apps that are smaller versions of the original apps, Skype Lite uses less data to send and receive messages, or make and receive voice calls over the internet. Skype Lite runs far more smoothly on 2G or in challenging network conditions, offering users a more consistent, quality service.
The patchy network in India is ubiquitous and such versions are definitely welcome for people who require a version that does not hog too much mobile data. Additionally, Skype Lite uses less data and power by compressing large files such as photos and video content and therefore requires less battery power compared to the Skype mobile app.
The company has also announced the integration of Aadhaar unique identification number on the app from June 2017. This will allow verify the identity of unknown callers in a lot of situations where identification verification is required, including job interviews, goods and property sale.
The other features include purchasing credits to make calls to mobile phones and landlines. Otherwise the app is free of charge and only relies on your internet connection. The voice calls are relatively smooth as compared to other similar services like Google Duo, but the company needs to market its products well.
WhatsApp too has voice calls, video calls and messaging feature on its app, so Skype Lite will be of primary use mostly to corporates or small businesses. The app is not available on iOS yet, but it will be launched pretty soon.
