In early 2008 ABI Research concluded that the value of the mobile search sector would increase to $5 billion globally over the next five years.

Along similar lines, research by Nielsen Mobile found that Yahoo!, which has struggled to bypass Google‘s 61 percent dominance in the internet search sector, had 18 percent of the mobile search market for the first quarter of 2008.

Telstra‘s subsidiary Sensis is now looking to capitalise on a recent growth spurt for its own mobile search engine by organising a deal with Yahoo!

The arrangement will see a revamped version of Sensis Search powered by Yahoo!’s oneSearch service.

Sensis indicates that a 77 percent increase in hits to its search platform since the start of this year shows a growing trend in consumers accessing information via mobile.

The Yahoo! connection will enable Sensis users to access oneSearch’s information on news, financial information, and the Yahoo!Answers? database, while still providing them with a gateway to Sensis Search’s own range of mobile content as well as internet and mobile web search facilities.

“Customers can now search for content on their mobile devices and have confidence that the results will be the most relevant information from the web, mobile web, images, weather and news,” Telstra says on its ‘nowearetalking’ website.

In other Yahoo! news, the company has launched an online ad network that claims to reach more than 80 percent of the UK’s web population via websites and mobile sites (apparently in excess of 29 million monthly users).

Called Yahoo Network, its inventory includes the Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Mail and Flickr, in addition to space on more than 100 top comScore-rated websites.

“Ease, efficiency and effectiveness are the key drivers that will appeal to Yahoo Network commercial partners,” says Mark Rabe, vice-president and managing director of sales for Yahoo! UK and Ireland.