Africa’s average mobile penetration rate reached “about 75%” by the end of June this year, according to Australian-based BuddeComm research.

In a summary of its report dubbed ‘Africa - Mobile Voice Market and Major Network Operators’, BuddeComm says penetration rates of as high as 150% have been registered in some countries on the continent.

Although, the likes of Eritrea and South Sudan are the few exceptions "sporting very low" rates, according to the research firm.

"(Higher) penetration can be seen in several southern countries, including Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, as also in the north from Morocco to Egypt and in a number of West African states including Gambia, Ghana and Gabon," says the research firm.

BuddeComm further notes in its summary that a key contributor to mobile voice telephony growth in Africa is the poor state of fixed-line infrastructure on the continent.

This had "rendered mobile connectivity as the only viable telecom service in many areas," says the report.

As a result of this, "mobile services still represent more than 90% of all telephone lines in service," according to BuddeComm.

Earlier this year, research and advisory firm, Frost and Sullivan, also predicted significant growth potential for the telecoms industries in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because of low mobile penetration rates in the two countries.

Ethiopia has a mobile penetration rate of just 36.4% while that of the DRC stands at 24.1% compared to the sub-Saharan Africa's rate of about 61%.