In a bid to attract a larger share of a growing and increasingly wired segment of the U.S. population, Yahoo and Telemundo said Wednesday the two companies would combine their Internet properties aimed at the country’s Hispanic population.

The new Yahoo Telemundo site represents the first instance of cooperation between a national Hispanic network and a Latino-targeted Internet property.

While neither company will make an equity investment in its new partner, the deal signals the rising importance of the Spanish-speaking market to advertisers. Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.

There will be an estimated 13.5 million Hispanic households in the United States by the end of the decade, controlling $670 billion in personal income.

Latinos will also be connected to the Internet in substantial numbers. According to the research firm eMarketer, there were almost 16 million Hispanic people with access to the web in 2005. That figure will grow to 20 million in 2010.

Tapping a Growing Segment

It is not only the number of Latinos online and off that is growing: a successful Spanish-oriented Internet property would tap into the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. advertising industry.

According to the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, advertising in the Hispanic market is growing four times faster than in the overall U.S. market, and stands now at $4 billion. In 2000, only 3.6 percent of corporate ad budgets went to pitching to Latinos. In 2005, it was 5.2 percent.

Yahoo Telemundo will compete with other Internet properties seeking the U.S. Hispanic audience, such as AOL Latino, which debuted in October 2003.

But Yahoo will have a partner with prominent name recognition in the U.S. Hispanic community. Telemundo, which is wholly owned by NBC Universal, boasts that it reaches 93 percent of Latino households in 142 markets.

The Spanish-language network’s portfolio of sports, news, and entertainment programming could be a powerful lure drawing traffic to Yahoo’s Spanish-language site, which already claims an audience of 11.5 million.

Yahoo shares fell $0.44 to $32.05 in recent trading. NBC Universal is jointly owned by General Electric and Vivendi Universal. Shares of GE dropped $0.23 to $34.77 in recent trading, while Vivendi shares rose $1.12 to $36.90.