The rumor mill started in May, and today Google and China Mobile have announced their agreement to cooperate on “mobile search products and services.” Details are thin, but it is clear Google will enable mobile search on China Mobile’s Monternet WAP portal, enabling China Mobile users to search Monternet and its stockpile of mobile content, including sports and entertainment news, ringtones, games, images, videos and novels. Users will be able to access the service via a “search box or search link on Monternet’s homepage, or through a dedicated mobile search homepage on Monternet.” The first-phase service has been partially put into trial operation as of last month (which is when it was first reported) and will be launched “broadly” in the early part of 2007.

In a press statement, Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, called the move instrumental in the operator’s “transformation into a mobile information expert.” China Mobile “will unite the industry chain, rapidly enhancing the whole industry’s value.” (Again, no hint if this chain goes beyond mobile search to cover the much more lucrative approaches to search monetization Google has been testing elsewhere in the region.) China ranks behind the U.S. as the world’s second-largest Internet market with over 120 million users. China Mobile said it had 300 million users at the end of November. Release.