Vodafone Signs Exclusive Mobile Advertisement Deal With Yahoo!

By Amit Chowdhry ● Nov 14, 2006

Yahoo! and Vodafone have officially signed an agreement that gives Yahoo! an edge of the UK mobile market for advertising. Vodafone is a telecommunication group that spans across 27 countries, has 33 network partners, and a customer base of 186.8 million as of June 2006. Yahoo! will be the exclusive advertisement provider for Vodafone networks. This initiative will be rolled out in early 2007.

Customers will have the option to have these advertisements displayed and if they agree, they may reap the benefits of Vodafone service discounts. “Since we announced our intention to develop revenue from mobile advertising as part of our mobile plus strategy unveiled in May, we have carried out extensive customer trials,” stated Nick Read, a chief executive of Vodafone UK. “We will now use the experience to determine with Yahoo! how best to ensure customers, who choose to receive targeted messages, get better value as well as a richer mobile experience. This will also ensure that advertisers are given a compelling proposition.”

Partnering with Vodafone gives Yahoo! a strong competitive over other wireless advertisement competitors, Google and Microsoft. There definitely seems to be an intensity of the rivalry between these three companies in seizing continental markets. I wonder which of the three will establish a strong presence the Asian, African, South American, and Australian continents.