News
Yahoo! inks global deal with 3
Stuart O'Brien Jun 29 2006, 10:00am
Yahoo! has stuck a multi-territory deal to provide 3 customers with a range of mobile services, including full web access for the first time.
The initial products include Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mobile Web, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Go for Mobile.
The first services will launch in the UK this summer, followed by 3 Group’s European and Asia-Pacific markets including Italy, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. Hutchison Telecommunications International in Hong Kong and India are also included as part of the deal.
3 UK previously allowed its customers to access only specially selected websites outside of its walled garden due to concerns over user experience, but the aggreement with Yahoo! signals a new policy of full web access facilitated by the Internet giant's website adaptation technologies.
The companies will jointly market the services on the Yahoo! and 3 networks.
Christian Salbaing, managing director Europe at 3 Group, said: “This relationship isn’t just about us buying more content to put on our portal, its about a deep engagement between our two companies to bring some of the world’s most popular Internet services and content to 3’s networks. Convergence between the Internet and mobile has been much talked about but this deal will really make it happen.”
Geraldine Wilson,VP of Connected Life at Yahoo! Europe, said: “This arrangement gives us a new opportunity to take Yahoo! content and services to even more potential users – especially those that might not have ready or frequent access to the Internet via a PC.”
In March, 3 UK inked a deal with Yahoo! rival MSN to cross promote user-generated content services.
