Yahoo has announced that it stared a partnership with HP which is meant to increase its search market share.

The announced partnership will require HP to deliver desktop and notebook PCs in North America having Yahoo! set as the default search engine in Microsoft’s upcoming Internet Explorer 7. In Europe, HP will have to configure the Yahoo! start page as the default home page in Microsoft’s browser.

According to Gartner, the global PC market continued solid expansion in Q2 2006, with HP maintaining its position as the number two PC vendor, showing significant sales strength globally. With this new agreement, HP customers have instant access to Yahoo!’s trusted and vital online services such as Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance.

“Partnering with a company like HP, that has been a leader in its industry for many years, puts Yahoo! in an excellent position to be able to distribute our most widely adopted offerings, like Yahoo! Search and the new Yahoo! Mail, to an even broader audience across the globe,” said Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer, Yahoo! Inc. “This relationship is an important component of Yahoo!’s overall strategy to partner with leading global brands that will enable us to further extend our products and services to the world’s community of Internet users.”

The Yahoo! and HP co-branded toolbar gives HP customers the ability to search from anywhere on the Web, know instantly when an email in Yahoo! Mail arrives, gain access to HP customer services, and to protect their PCs from distracting pop-up advertisements. The Yahoo! start page automatically appears when an HP customer opens a Web browser on his or her PC and offers Yahoo! content, such as news, and links to Yahoo! services such as Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Sports.

The Yahoo! and HP co-branded toolbar on HP consumer PCs in North America and the Yahoo! start page on HP PCs in Europe are available immediately. Additionally, Yahoo! will become the default search engine on HP consumer PCs in North America when Microsoft launches its Internet Explorer 7.