Africa continues to be the world’s fastest growing mobile market with subscriptions set to reach 761 million this year The industry is also making a ton of cash, generating  $56 billion toward the continent’s GDP, of which mobile operators made up the largest share.

London-based Informa Telecoms and Media said on Monday that Africa, pushed on by  robust economic growth and an increasingly competitive marketplace, should reach one billion subscribers by 2015.

The group forecasts that the African market will have grown 18 per cent by the end of next year, against the world average of 11 per cent. AFP quoted Africa and Middle East analyst Matthew Reed:

Africa’s mobile market continues to grow robustly, driven by competition among mobile operators, the availability of new data services and strong economic growth on the continent. . . Substantial opportunities for further growth remain, because the rate of mobile penetration in Africa is the lowest among major world regions and fixed networks are under-developed or absent across much of the continent.