Yahoo has pushed to extend its position in mobile search and advertising with a series of new Asian operator deals, just as new research from Nielsen Mobile suggests the company is struggling to keep up with market-leader Google. Yahoo today announced that its oneSearch application will become the preferred search service on the mobile Internet sites of Indian operator MTNL, CSL in Hong Kong, Smart Communications and Sun Cellular in the Philippines, and Taiwanese 3G operator Vibo Telecom. The company claims it now has more than 60 such deals for oneSearch and is able to reach 600 million subscribers. Yahoo is also offering localised versions of its Go 3.0 voice search technology in India, Southeast Asia and Australia, with localisation features including a Bahasa Indonesia version for that country, and one designed to recognise various regional English accents. In addition, the company signed two mobile advertising deals, with Maxis Malaysia and Idea Cellular in India.

Meanwhile, data from Nielsen Mobile states that Yahoo only managed to secure 18 percent of the mobile search market in first-quarter 2008, behind Google’s dominant 61 percent. Microsoft’s MSN was in third place with 5 percent. Reports suggest that the iPhone has contributed to Google’s success; Google is set as a factory default search engine on all iPhones, with Yahoo offered as a secondary option.