With their superior national coverage and large subscriber bases, Africa's mobile network operators have built up a level of market power to the extent that they have been called "the new incumbents". Newly introduced converged licensing regimes have increased the competitive pressure but also allow the mobile operators to branch out into new service segments.

A variety of companies have established themselves as regional major players in Africa's mobile sector. France Telecom, through its Orange mobile division has also established a presence in 18 African countries, South Africa's MTN in 16, in addition to several in the Middle East. India's Bharti Airtel took over 15 of the 16 African operations of Kuwait's Zain for US$10.7 billion.

MTN's archrival in its South African home market, Vodacom's expansion across the continent has been limited to a total of only five countries due to restrictions from the partnership agreement with its majority shareholder, Vodafone which itself operates in three countries.

Millicom from Luxembourg was also among the early investors, operating under the Tigo brand in seven countries.

Orascom from Egypt divested most of its sub-Saharan operations between 2002 and 2005, mostly in markets with low penetration and high growth potential, to concentrate on the more developed North African and Middle Eastern markets. However, in 2008 it established a new subsidiary Telecel Globe to re-enter sub-Saharan Africa, including some of the same markets it had abandoned five years earlier.

Other regional players with major funding from the Middle East include the UAE's Etisalat under the Moov brand, Warid Telecom, and the Lebanon-based Comium Group. Other African companies that have expanded beyond their home markets include Zimbabwe's Econet, Maroc Telecom (with backing from Vivendi of France), Libya's LapGreen and Sudan's Sudatel under the Expresso brand.

Further consolidation is expected as smaller players are finding it increasingly difficult to compete. But even the bigger pan-African operators have recently become takeover targets for even bigger global players.

Market highlights: Mobile market penetration in Africa has passed 50%; Unsustainable price wars are raging in some countries; Mobile ARPU has bottomed in some markets but is still falling rapidly in others; Some mobile operators are rolling out national fibre optic backbone networks and are entering new service sectors under converged licensing regimes; Subscriber statistics and estimates for 2011/12 for each country; Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are expected to intensify in an increasingly crowded market.

Top 10 African countries by annual growth - 2010 Country Annual growth Zimbabwe 168% Rwanda 80% Burundi 69% Mayotte 62% Equatorial Guinea 52% Sao Tome & Principe 49% Central African Republic 47% Eritrea 46% Mali 45% Niger 45% (Source: BuddeComm based on various sources) Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.