Yahoo! To Announce More Carrier Partnerships

I recently reported that Yahoo! will soon launch its OneSearch search engine on an Asian mobile carrier’s portal. Now, Reuters reports that Yahoo! has actually signed more deals with other mobile carriers in South Asia:

The U.S. Internet giant has been in talks with operators in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia — countries that boast some of the region’s highest mobile penetration rates — for new tie-ups for its mobile services, President Susan Decker said at an event in Taipei.

“We will have a number of announcements in the months ahead, even days and weeks,” Decker said at a news conference during a trip to Asia.

Yahoo’s combined user base in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, five of its key Asia Pacific markets, totals about 25 million users, said Rose Tsou, senior vice president of Asia region.

In June, Yahoo said it had signed six agreements with Asian mobile operators, including LG Telecom in South Korea, Maxis Communications Berhad in Malaysia and Taiwan Mobile.

The article doesn’t mention the nature of the agreements, so let’s be patient to get more details. With these announcements, Yahoo! clearly proves that they are serious about mobile search and have nothing to fear from white label mobile search engines or Google.