Experience v/s Promotion

Its depends on companies standards, to become Senior Enginer : Min 3 to 4 years required, Lead : Min 5 to 8 years, Architect : Min 8 to 12 Years of experience needed. 

Is experience matters when it comes to getting promoted or skills?

Answer: Both matters.

In small/medium companies, they will promote their employee sooner because their pay scale is less, they want their employee to stay longer with them, etc reasons.

Lets say your working MNC, you have 3 year of exp and your expert in your team and your helping everyone, including lead etc with your work but campany will not promote you till your experience meets the standards, only thing is your manager will gives you more hike. Lets assume you reached 5 year of experience and few of your collegues aslo reached 5 years then your manager will consider you for technically leading team because you helped everyone in team with your work he know your skill sets and how expert you are and your colleagues has to work under you even though they 5 years of experience.

I hope you understand how experience and skills matters!

Not necessary, If you have skills with the current technologies then you will get promoted anytime. Experience has value, only when you are working in a related field and your past experience is updated to the latest technologies. On the other hand, the experience has less value, when you are outdated on technology. And yes, the knowledge and technical skills are required for promotion.