Dubai group Friendi plans to expand into six more countries within four years after the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreed a strategic partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, its chief executive told Reuters yesterday.

Under the deal, Friendi will add Virgin Mobile’s South African unit to its existing MVNO licences in Oman and Jordan. The company will be renamed Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa, with Virgin holding a minority stake to become the largest shareholder in the new entity.
No financial details of the transaction were provided.

MVNOs lease excess capacity from conventional telecoms operators and typically pay them a percentage of their revenue.

The new company will have more than 1mn subscribers, with about 300,000 from Virgin Mobile South Africa and the remainder from Friendi’s Jordan and Oman operations. Friendi also provides branding and advisory services to Saudi Arabia’s number three telecoms operator Zain Saudi.

“We have a target of growing to 5mn customers by 2015, so adding about 1mn customers per year for the next three to four years,” Friendi chief executive Mikkel Vinter told Reuters.

“It’s partly growth in existing markets, but also reasonably fast expansion across new markets. We have an ambition to get to 10 markets from the four we have today within a three- to four-year timeframe.”

He declined to reveal which countries the company was targeting. “We are looking at some markets in the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia,” said Vinter.