Yahoo, Vodafone in talks about search deal?
By Dusan Belic on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 12:52 PM PST In Mobile Web, Partnerships, Rumors, Vodafone
Yahoo is reportedly in talks with Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) about the distribution of its mobile search client in Europe. Although no contract has been signed yet, if this goes through Yahoo would be a default search engine on all phones sold by Vodafone, hence replacing Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which contract expires this year.
Both Yahoo’s and Vodafone’s representatives declined to comment the news. All we got were Yahoo’s Zealous Wiley generic words that the company is in talks with “a number of operators around the world, including Europe.”
To put things in perspective here are few facts:
- Yahoo has already several mobile deals in place, including agreements with T-Mobile (NYSE: DT), AT&T (NYSE: T) and O2 (NYSE: TEF).
- In 2006, Yahoo and Vodafone signed a contract for Yahoo to sell advertising on Vodafone’s handsets in the U.K.
- Vodafone has a market value of $87.5 billion, while Yahoo is worth $17.8 billion. This should show you who deals the cards in this game.
We’ll see whether something will come out of this.
[Via: Bloomberg]
My view on Yahoo and vodafone. They will come out with a new phone ready? Drum roll please. The new phone from Yahoo and Vodafone “The Yodafone”. The package will say ” Search is the path to the right side. Search leads to an audience. An audience leads to Clicks. Click leads to Carol Bartz excited of being part of talks.”