Bharti Softbank and Yahoo Japan Corp, the leading internet portal in Japan, on Tuesday said they have teamed up to develop a mobile internet portal for the Indian mobile market. Both the companies will form a JV ‘BSY’for this purpose.

Bharti Softbank is a 50:50 JV between Bharti Enterprises and Softbank Corp.

Kavin Bharti Mittal, head (strategy & new product development) at BSB, said, ""We are delighted to partner Yahoo! Japan, who have a proven track record in this area. BSY, which is BSB's second venture, will be an important piece in our strategy to drive the uptake of mobile internet and data services.""

While BSB was launched last October to focus on mobile internet in India, BSY Pte. Ltd is a step forward in this partnership and aims to combine Bharti's deep understanding of the Indian market with the Softbank group's rich experience in the internet portal space.

"Yahoo! Japan's understanding of technology and analytics in this domain will be a big plus for this partnership, through which we aim to offer exciting content and services to customers in India. We are looking forward to working with all mobile operators and promote an open internet culture on mobile," said Madhu Nori, BSB's India operations head.

Yahoo! Japan, which is Japan's numero uno internet portal, has an 84% market share. The company's success has driven users graduating from simple VAS to using mobile phones to access the internet.

Shin Murakami, chief mobile officer of Yahoo! Japan said "Japan's mobile industry has set several global benchmarks in terms of technology and services and Yahoo! Japan has led the growth of mobile internet business as part of the Softbank group. We are pleased with the partnership with BSB for the Indian market, where the coming years will see explosive growth of data usage on mobile. Through this partnership we hope to contribute to enhance people's lives through mobile internet."