Yahoo Strikes Deal With Vodafone
Yahoo is making its way, one step at a time, into the mobile market. The search engine company announced a "strategic alliance" with Vodafone earlier today, which may act to give it leverage in a number of European countries.
The deal only names the UK, however, in which "Yahoo will become Vodafone's exclusive display advertising partner." Together, the companies will "pool their expertise to create an innovative mobile advertising business that will enhance the customer experience on mobile phones while providing both companies with a new revenue stream."
Marco Boerries, the senior vice president of Connected Life at Yahoo, commented on the alliance. "This partnership demonstrates Yahoo!'s continued focus on extending our leadership in graphical advertising across multiple platforms," he said. "We are excited to work with a global leader such as Vodafone to help us define the emerging world of mobile advertising and create superior experiences that deliver the most value to advertisers and mobile users alike."
Yahoo is very much on the move within that world of mobile advertising. News of Yahoo's "graphical advertising platform for its Web service" broke one week ago, and about a month before that, the search engine company began to test sponsored search results on mobile handsets.
The Vodafone deal puts Yahoo in a prime position to gain access to an even wider audience. A description of the telecommunication corporation states that it "has ownership interests in 26 countries across 5 continents. In addition, the Group has Partner Networks in a further 34 countries." This translates into about "191.6 million proportionate customers in its subsidiaries, joint ventures, affiliates and investments," and "at 30 September 2006, there were 577.4 million venture customers."
For now, though, the agreement is limited to the UK. Yahoo is probably quite pleased with that, even as it plans to further expand its range of mobile services.
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