Facing competition from Google, Microsoft, Apple and even Facebook, Yahoo Inc. still has many assets, but analysts are split as to whether they all add up to a comprehensive mobile strategy.

Yahoo claims that it gets approximately 600 million unique monthly visitors on the Internet, consistently making it the No. 1 or No. 2 site based on time spent, and that brand loyalty does cross over to the mobile Web. And, while it is strong in the areas of mobile display advertising and mobile content, some worry that Yahoo is not creating a synergy that is greater than the sum of its parts in the mobile space.

?The mobile space is a cluttered market already, and the penetration of smartphones and consumer interest in using mobile services and active data usage are increasing,? said Josh Martin, senior analyst of wireless media services at global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics, Newton, MA. ?From a larger perspective, Yahoo has lost market share over the last few years in general.

?It is not the dominant player and it has to exert effort to remain relevant in mobile and in general,? he said. ?Local content is important, but the most important is to make money, and Yahoo has demonstrated that it knows how to make money, sometimes better than others.

?With mobile local search, partnering with Nokia and launching apps, Yahoo has tried many things, and those various efforts are important, but they have not coalesced around a brand identity in the mobile space, and that?s a challenge?Yahoo is well known online and abroad, but tying everything together has been a challenge.?

To its credit, Yahoo has been keeping busy in the mobile space, making it clear that it is a high priority for the company.

Yahoo?s mobile initiatives encompass the mobile Web, free ad-supported applications, as well as mobile search. The company is especially bullish about the prospects for mobile advertising for this year and beyond (see story).

Last month in New York, top Yahoo and Nokia executives announced a worldwide strategic alliance to extend the reach of both companies? online and mobile services (see story).

Yahoo?s planned acquisition of Associated Content Inc. is a move that validates the importance of providing high quality, locally relevant mobile content for consumers and advertisers (see story).

In the mobile search arena, Yahoo faces challenges in its quest to gain market share from competitors such as Google and Microsoft?s Bing, even after it formed a revenue-sharing agreement with the latter (see story).

Part of its mobile search strategy is extending its reach into the applications space (see story).

Recent campaigns from Paramount/DreamWorks for Shrek Forever (see story) and Fidelity Investments (see story) have showcased Yahoo?s mobile ad network.

Most recently, Yahoo extended its Mail and Messenger applications for Android devices and debuted HTML5 mobile Web sites for the iPhone and iPod touch (see story).

But do all of these various assets add up to a coherent mobile strategy?

Yahoo serious about mobile
While CEO Carol Bartz has taken her share of public relations hits, Yahoo remains arguably the world?s biggest digital content company, with a vast email network and widely read financial and sports news.

?Our vision is to take basically any connected device and empower anyone with a connected device to get the most out of their world by getting the most out of their services, the core experiences that define Yahoo,? said Irv Henderson, vice president of mobile and local product development at Yahoo, Sunnyvale, CA.

?We want to make sure we take that connected experience and make it relevant for the more than 600 million users we have on PCs globally, driving deeper connections between the PC handoff and mobile handoff,? he said. ?We see this as being a normal transition for users.

?We are looking at emerging experiences being defined because of connected devices, and we?ve made significant investments around local, with significant product announcements around local experiences that are mobile-first for us.?

Competitors such as Google and Microsoft have tried their hand at manufacturing handsets and have not met with much success, signaling that perhaps Yahoo was wise not to try to become an original equipment manufacturer (see story).

Instead, Yahoo has focused on partnerships, most recently with OEMs Nokia and Samsung.

?[Another aspect of our mobile strategy] is distribution, and we have a long history of partnerships, recently with Nokia and Samsung, and we also announced a partnership with Alcatel for distribution of their phone,? Mr. Henderson said.

?Partnerships are an important part of how we execute our strategy,? he said. ?We?re platform-agnostic?we look across Android, iPhone, RIM, Nokia and Samsung to reach our audience on whatever device they sit on today regardless of where they are in the world.?

Yahoo claims to have 45 million mobile Web users in the U.S., and has applications for various smartphone platforms. Its applications for Android are the latest.

?The Android implementations are consistent with that first part of the strategy, mobilizing our core services,? Mr. Henderson said. ?We?re executing our strategy by getting out on platforms that are scaled like Android and emerging platforms like HTML5, with which we can do really clever things.

?We?re making sure our experiences on mobile devices are really nicely implemented as users migrate to smartphones and tablets, and tying those back to the PC,? he said.

Yahoo is currently focusing on mobile content, specifically applications and its mobile Web site, and monetizing that inventory with mobile advertising.

?We sit in a unique place, because we are our own largest customer, because we control our product experience,? Mr. Henderson said. ?In our HTML5 site for Mail, we have an elegantly implemented advertising experience.

?The partnerships we have on the advertising side are compelling product implementations for product solutions that delight our customers,? he said. ?They strike a nice balance between making a great user experience and meeting the needs of our advertisers.?

Yahoo sees a bright future for HTML5, and has been investing heavily in it, enabling more creative mobile ad units.

?HTML5 is very compelling, providing an almost app-like experience based on how fast it is, with background caching and updating, as well as information, photo and media management,? Mr. Henderson said. ?Clearly there are some really awesome and compelling things that can be done in HTML5 from an adoption perspective.

?Yahoo Messenger was implemented on iPhone and is extremely successful, and we expect same level of success on iPad,? he said. ?Increasingly though, there is the notion of discovering an icon on a user?s homescreen that opens into an HTML5 experience.

?The definition of ?app? is changing.?

Yahoo wants its PC and mobile platforms to feed off each other, so that consumers can access its content wherever they are, and advertisers can try to reach those consumers across Yahoo?s inventory.

?We are seeing demand for cross-platform buys, particularly as experiences on connected devices become more and more compelling,? Mr. Henderson said. ?As part of the mobilization of Yahoo, we increasingly see the blurring of the lines [between PC and mobile] and we?re focusing on cumulative engagement.

?We?re seeing it more broadly, more holistically about engagement beyond PCs to connected devices users take with them, and advertisers are doing the same,? he said.

Mr. Henderson that a focus on emerging markets is another key aspect of Yahoo?s mobile strategy.

Here is a video focusing on Yahoo?s mobile strategy, as well as its Android applications and HTML5 launch:

Sum greater than its parts?
The key for Yahoo is to tie all of the various elements of its strategy together to create a synergy.

?Finding out what works and what doesn?t work is important, but the various departments are not talking to each other well enough?they need to tie everything together more effectively,? Mr. Martin said. ?Google has done a good job with that?Android tying to desktops and the various parts working together to make a sum greater than its parts.

?Yahoo must leverage their various resources and services they have available,? he said. ?They are pretty wide reaching, but they are not using them properly.?

The reality of the marketplace is that Yahoo will always be compared to competitors such as Google.

?Android is going to be a real problem for them,? Mr. Martin said. ?Search in general on the mobile device seems to become less important with the rise of apps, but Google is the de facto search engine for all of those [Android-based] devices, and they?ve proven that they?re better at making money in search than Yahoo.

?It?s an uphill battle for Yahoo, because there are lots of strong competitors [in the mobile space],? he said. ?They?ve been putting out fires for a while now.

?Yahoo has 3 million Latitude members, but it hasn?t separated itself from the pack in terms of local search.?

Mr. Martin does approve of Yahoo?s focus on partnerships.

?The Nokia deal good, because it lets Yahoo do what they do best?email?and lets Nokia do what Nokia does best?mapping,? Mr. Martin said. ?They have to develop more of those relationships, including carrier relationships, because everyone else has got a bigger play in the market and a direct conduit to the end user, and Yahoo might get boxed out on some of those platforms.

?Yahoo must not just be the default [search engine] but create a compelling experience for consumers on the mobile device, integrating with mapping, integrating with news, leveraging their acquisition of Associated Content,? he said.

?There?s a lot that they can do, but it requires a visionary at the top.?

Other analysts have taken a sunnier view of the progress that Yahoo has made in the mobile space.

?Nokia has fantastic Maps solutions and content, so that is a move forward for Yahoo,? said Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Cambridge, MA. ?It makes sense for them to find best-of-breed partners where they don?t think they are the No. 1 or No. 2 in the market.?

Yahoo has phenomenal reach today, according to Forrester.

 ?I haven?t heard them talk much about their mobile numbers?how many page views or ad impressions per month on mobile?but I?d have to assume they have one of the largest mobile ad networks,? Ms. Ask said.

?They have some great applications already?one of them is Yahoo Fantasy Football,? she said. ?Yahoo ?gets? multichannel from a media perspective.

?Multichannel customers are more engaged?they visit more often and view more pages.?

Final take
Dan Butcher, Mobile Marketer