Sunnyvale, California — Yahoo may have lost its search deal with T-Mobile in the U.S. earlier this month, but the Internet pioneer on Thursday said that Yahoo and Spanish telecommunications network operator Telefónica España entered into an alliance as the exclusive search provider to power mobile searches and sponsored-search advertising on Telefonica’s emocion mobile portal in Spain replacing Google.
The new partnership builds on a two-and-half year old association with Telefonica, Yahoo was already the sole search engine on Telefonica’s mobile portals in 15 European and Latin American countries. But the partnership especially left out two of Telefonica’s largest markets — Germany and Spain.
The Telefonica Espana deal, as well as Yahoo’s acquisition of Citizen Sports that it announced on Wednesday, is part of Yahoo’s game-plan to bolster its sponsored-search advertising business and throw more affection at the content categories where it is as powerful as it focuses on transforming into a media company.
Elisa Caballero, developments of value for residential customers general manager of Telefónica España, commented on the new partnership, “Our emocion portal brings the Web to consumers’ pockets. A great mobile search service is a crucial part of that experience; by integrating Yahoo!’s mobile search experience, we are ensuring our customers have all the information they need at their fingertips.”
Yahoo’s mobile search service is designed to empower users to get info on sports teams, for example, and find the latest scores and team profiles and news.
Yahoo! said its mobile search service provides Telefónica’s consumers in Spain with pertinent information on any topic from news, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr photos, travel information, integrated information from Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers, and much more. Yahoo! will also display relevant ring-tones, wallpapers, games, and other content from the emocion portal within the search results, the search provider notes, offering some examples on the matter:
- When you search for a sports team, Yahoo! shows the latest scores, team profiles, news, images, and a link to the team’s website.
- If you search for a film, Yahoo! returns show times at local cinemas, critic reviews, news articles, and other relevant information on the cast.
“This is an important milestone as we extend our relationship with Telefónica and offer consumers across Spain with an engaging mobile search experience that enables them to discover their world and the world around them,” said Rich Riley, senior vice president, Yahoo! Europe. “Together, Telefónica and Yahoo! are enhancing the mobile Internet experience for consumers, while creating scale for advertisers, enabling them to reach the rapidly growing audience of mobile consumers.”
Telefónica España and Yahoo! also revealed that they planned on including sponsored search listings with the carrier’s portal. The two companies will focus on creating the monetization engine for the Internet on mobile devices, Yahoo! helps advertisers reach their target audiences at a large scale and with greater impact.
In November, Yahoo replaced Google as the default search provider for Telefonica subsidiary O2 Germany — and now it has closed the loop with its deal in Telefonica’s home country.
Yahoo has lately been selling off pieces of its business that are under-performing or are not part of its core content areas of news, finance, entertainment and sports.
Here is the announcement.