Yahoo has cemented a deal with Latin America’s top mobile phone company America Movil today to provide mobile Web services to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Yahoo’s oneSearch service will be the default on America Movil’s wireless carriers’ portals. Localized versions of oneSearch will be created for each region. This is the largest of 21 search deals Yahoo has entered into this year.
America Movil has 143 million wireless subscribers across Latin America. Yahoo’s second largest deal of this type involved Spain’s Telefonica SA and covers 100 million subscribers in European and Latin American markets. Yahoo is hammering out deals to attract subscribers to Internet services delivered over mobile phones and is spending less time trying to attract computer users. The service lets users search the Web on the first screen they call up, unlike browsers designed for computer users, which force users to navigate through several screens.
Yahoo is taking a different path in the mobile realm than its rival Google. Google recently unveiled plans to build a mobile phone operating system called Android. Instead of getting into operating systems and software design, Yahoo is focusing on mobile advertising deals.