Telecommunications in Nigeria grew 23 per cent last year, and fetched $8.24 billion, according to a report by Pyramid Research.

Earnings are expected to climb 5.7 per cent to peak at $11.14 billion by 2013.

The report said Nigeria, now with over 61 million lines, has overtaken South Africa which has a subscriber base of 42 per cent.

About 83 per cent of the sector's revenue will still come from mobile business over the next five years, the report stressed, and continued growth in the period is expected to trigger more intense competition among networks.

"Suppliers of mobile network technologies are likely to benefit from more aggressive rollouts of mobile voice and data services and demand for CDMA and GSM base stations is expected to remain strong over the next several years," it enthused.

Figures published by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that Visafone, with 2,205,868 subscribers, ranks the 4th largest mobile telephone operator in Nigeria.