Yahoo Bound For LG Cell Phones

Yahoo's "Go" mobile platform will appear on the screens of tens of millions of LG cell phone handsets shipped later this year, as part of a licensing agreement the two companies announced Monday.

Under the deal LG will pre-load Yahoo services, including Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Messenger, on phones sold worldwide. The announcement that was timed to coincide with the start of the 3GSM exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, notes our colleague Martyn Williams, a correspondent for the IDG News Service.

LG was the fifth largest manufacturer of cell phones in 2006, according to figures from market research company IDC. It shipped 64.4 million phones during the year, which is 17.3 percent higher than the previous year and amounted to a 6.6 percent market share.

Yahoo has already tied up with market-leader Nokia and number two Motorola in similar deals to get its search box on the cellular equivalent of the PC desktop. However those deals haven't assured Yahoo a place on all screens. Motorola and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications similar deals with Google, and local carriers have struck their own partnerships which sometimes result in the two search engines being switched or displaced.

The two companies said they will also explore putting Yahoo services on LG consumer electronics products. LG is one of the world's leading manufacturers of digital consumer electronics including flat-panel televisions and video recorders.

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