Rapid growth in the African mobile market is attracting increasing interest from operators outside the continent looking to tap into what Wireless Intelligence predicts will be a 30 percent increase in subscribers this year.

    Mobile connections surpassed 200 million in the first quarter of this year to reach a penetration rate of around 21 percent of the continent’s 900 million people, leaving huge potential for further growth.

    The mainplayers with multiple operations in Africa are Mobile Telecommunications Co. (MTC) subsidiary Celtel International B.V. , MTN Group Ltd. , Orascom Telecom , Millicom International Cellular SA (Nasdaq: MICC - message board) , and Vodacom Pty. Ltd. (50 percent owned by Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD - message board)). But several other operators are making forays into the region.

    Portugal Telecom SGPSSA (NYSE: PT - message board) this week announced a strategic partnership with African private equity firm Helios Investors to help it form a unified operator in the sub-Saharan region. Under the agreement, Helios has acquired a 22 percent stake in Africa Holding, which aggregates Portugal Telecom’s operations in seven countries, totaling 171 million people. (See PT Teams Up in Africa.)

    The operators under the umbrella of Africa Holding had a total customer base of 2.9 million at the end of 2006 and had reached 3.4 million by the end of June. With Helios’s local knowledge, Portugal Telecom wants to “selectively expand the footprint in the region.”

    PT notes that the number of mobile subscribers in Africa is expected to grow at more than 10 percent per year until 2010 -- more than 100 million new customers. Of the top 10 growth markets in the continent, six are in sub-Saharan Africa, namely South Africa, Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, Angola, and Kenya.