The popular American Internet company Yahoo! Inc. and Latin America’s leading mobile phone company America Movil announced on Thursday that they had decided to join forces and signed a deal that would provide mobile Web service to no less than 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to this partnership, Yahoo’s oneSearch Web service will be the default on America Movil’s wireless carriers’ portals. Yahoo is also to offer localized versions of its service for each region, while other Yahoo services are also likely to be added starting with the next months.

Based in Mexico City, America Movil has no less than 143 million wireless subscribers and its deal with Yahoo represents for the latter the largest partnership from the 21 search deals the company has announced in 2007 with mobile phone carriers.

The continually growing mobile phone industry determined Yahoo to focus on attracting subscribers to Internet services delivered via mobile pones, rather than computer browsers. The company launched its oneSearch Web service in January 2007 in the United States.

Unlike Google, which started developing its own open-source mobile OS, Yahoo said recently that it would focus on mobile advertising deals, rather than start a new different business.