South Africa's Vodacom Group opened its first office in Ethiopia on Tuesday, to establish its presence in a country which have a large market but still maintains a state monopoly over its telecoms sector, Reuters reported.

Ethiopia's state owned Ethio Telecom have a rapidly growing subscribers, totaling almost 650 million last year, up from just 25 million in 2001, according to the World Bank.

Romeo Kumalo, Vodacom Group's CEO, told Reuters in the Ethiopian capital Vodacom would apply for a licence to provide value-added services.

"But more importantly we want to position ourselves so when the market opens and the government does decide to grant licences in the consumer sector," he said.

"We would invest here tomorrow. Ethiopia is probably the most fantastic telecoms market on the continent. One operator, 80 million people, the economy growing at 7 percent - it's a great market."

The Ethiopian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology says more than 200 companies have applied to provide value added services.

Another South African cellular network operator, MTN Group, has opened office in Addis Ababa and already been granted a similar licence.

Source: Reuters