Yahoo to run Windows Mobile phones

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo (YHOO.O) has added mobile phones running Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows Mobile software to a growing list of handsets from device makers who feature Yahoo services on their phone screens, the company said on Tuesday.

Marking progress in its drive to make Web services widely available not just only computers but phones, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said the Windows Mobile push will expand its base of mobile Internet users by millions.

Yahoo said it had agreed to a partnership with Taiwan's High Tech Computer (2498.TW) (HTC), the world's leading maker of mobile phones running on Windows Mobile software, to place Yahoo on virtually all recent and new models HTC makes.

"Windows Mobile phone users tend to be consumers who are relatively data savvy," Ojas Rege, senior director of Yahoo's mobile phone business, said in an interview.

They range from mobile professionals who rely on Windows-based phones to stay connected to corporate networks services, mainstream phone users who want simple access to e-mail to phone geeks seeking the coolest video features.

"They are a pretty attractive group of users both from the standpoint of being early adopters of new services and in terms of advertising demographics," Rege said.

Earlier this year, Yahoo said it had signed deals with four of the top five mobile handset makers in the world: Nokia (NOK1V.HE), Motorola (MOT.N), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and LG Electronics(066570.KS).

"Yahoo is after is a modicum of ubiquity," said John Jackson, an analyst with mobile market research firm M:Metrics in Boston, referring to recent moves to stake out phones.