Nokia and Yahoo! announce partnership

Nokia and Yahoo! today announced a partnership in online mapping and communication services.

In this worldwide alliance, Nokia’s Ovi Maps will power Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, while Yahoo! will be the provider of Nokia’s email and chat services.

The two companies are also planning to integrate user logins. Initially, Nokia users may access select Yahoo! properties using their Ovi user IDs.

While US-based observers and critics may frown at this development as an alliance between an also-ran and a small player, it has great impact in emerging markets such as the Philippines. Yahoo! is used by at least 80% of Internet users in the Philippines, while Nokia is the most popular cellphone brand (with 59% device manufacturer share in Admob’s latest metrics) . In the Philippines, this could only be described as a partnership between two tech giants.

Disclosure: This blogger works for Yahoo! Philippines.