Yahoo Mobile expands to nine new countries

By Jordan Crook

June 22, 2009

Yahoo Mobile Featured

Yahoo Mobile is expanding its already broad reach to nine new countries and 100 more devices worldwide.

The Yahoo Mobile service is designed to offer consumers the chance to discover new information, stay connected and stay informed through their most accessible device: the mobile phone. Now Yahoo Mobile is available in 17 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas including the recent expansion into Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Italy.

"The new Yahoo Mobile homepage is currently available in 17 countries and territories," said Michael Shim, the New York-based managing director and head of mobile sales and business development for Yahoo Inc., Sunnyvale, CA. "Our plans are to continue expanding the experiences to additional international markets as well as well as expand the number of compatible devices.

"From the perspective of expanding our mobile business, we're continuing to focus our efforts on mobilizing Yahoo, improving Yahoo Mobile for Web and our existing cross-platform applications, as well as develop new and engaging experiences for consumers across various devices and platforms," he said.

Yahoo Mobile provides open and personalized starting points to the Internet via the mobile Web and through its iPhone application, available at the Apple App Store.

Yahoo Mobile News

Yahoo is positioning Yahoo Mobile as an Internet starting point for mobile devices.

With this new reach, the mobile version of Yahoo is available on more than 400 devices with HTML-enabled mobile browsers. Users can find Yahoo Mobile by visiting http://new.m.yahoo.com.

According to ComScore/M:Metrics, Yahoo is the leading Web brand used on the mobile Internet across browser, apps and SMS services, reaching more than 33 million unique subscribers per month in the U.S., Mr. Shim said.

"Additionally, we have the highest mobile brand reach in the instant messaging, email and entertainment categories in the U.S.," he said.

Yahoo Mobile has a feature-rich design that takes advantage of the recent boom of the smartphone.

Consumers can bring content and services that they would like to share with others to Yahoo Mobile's open environment where they can also fully personalize their Internet experience.

Based on feedback from delegates at the DM Days conference last week in New York, the release of the $99 iPhone will only increase the smartphone craze that is enveloping the nation.

"The smartphone continues to expand the notion of what is possible in the minds of consumers and advertisers," Mr. Shim said. "It has opened up the door to millions of new mobile Internet users who say, ‘Wow, I can do a lot of cool stuff on my phone " it's more than just voice and text.'

"This is great for the industry, and while smartphones are only a small portion of the total volume of mobile devices in today's market, the category is rapidly expanding and we see a disproportionate amount of Internet usage coming from smartphone devices," he said.