Japan’s Top internet search portal Yahoo has just signed a deal for Google Search to have collaborative efforts in Japan Search market. By having such search deal, Yahoo will predominantly dominate the Japan market and it will come to as blow for Microsoft who have a partnership with Yahoo on global level.
In July 2009, Yahoo signed a deal with Microsoft, under which Yahoo was to adopt Microsoft’s Bing as the search engine on all Yahoo sites. However, Yahoo only has a minority stake (35%) in Yahoo Japan, while the Japanese telecom giant Softbank owns 40% of the company, meaning that Yahoo didn’t have the final say in the decision.
“Yahoo! Japan made this decision as an independent and separate publicly traded company. This decision by Yahoo! Japan does not impact the global rollout and implementation of the Yahoo! search alliance with Microsoft, except in the Japanese market,” said Yahoo in a statement.
Now, in a deal that is likely to be challenged by Microsoft, Yahoo Japan and Google will corner the Japanese search market, in which Bing only has a minute share.
On the outside, however, nothing will change: Yahoo will keep its stake in Yahoo Japan and remain a strategic partner for the company, and Yahoo Japan will continue to use the Yahoo brand.
