South Africa’s biggest mobile operator, Vodacom, this week opened its new office in Ethiopia as it continues to ramp up its African expansion strategy which has relatively slow compared to that of its competitor, MTN.

This comes shortly after Vodacom announced last week that it bought up an additional 17.2 percent stake in its Tanzanian unit for R2.4 billion ($231.5m).

Romeo Kumalo, the CEO of Vodacom Group, told Reuters the mobile operator would formally request a licence to provide all services except for the standard voice calls in Ethiopia, situated in the Horn of Africa region.

“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,” Reuters quoted Khumalo as saying.

“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,” Khumalo told Reuters.

Sibonginkosi Nyanga, an equity analyst at Imara SP Reid, told Ventures Africa the move to enter Ethiopia was the beginning of greater transactions for the firm in Africa.

“Vodacom said it will also conduct mergers and acquisitions in Africa as it tries challenge MTN space in the continent. The reason they are into continental expansion is that Africa is where it is happening due to the opportunities that are and will be available in the future,” Nyanga said in an interview with Ventures Africa.

Ethiopia is one of Africa’s last remaining markets that still operates a state-controlled telecoms sector. Only lastweek, Ethiopia signed a $1.6 billion deal with Huawei and ZTE, China’s second-biggest telecoms equipment maker, to double phone subscribers in the country to more than 50 million by 2015.

It is understood that Africa is ready for the doubling of the smartphone market in the next four years.