South African mobile telecommunications company Vodacom and billionaire Richard Branson 's Virgin Mobile have teamed up to bid for majority equity stake in Nigeria's third-largest mobile operator Vmobile.

The two mobile telecommunications firms, which had separately bid for controlling stake in Vmobile, said in a statement made available Friday they are forming a consortium to make a joint bid so that the Nigerian firm would become "a far stronger company."

"Today, Vodacom and Virgin Group confirmed their intention to bring together their extensive expertise in the mobile telephony market, and to form a consortium together to undertake a joint bid for a controlling stake in Nigeria's Vmobile," they said in the statement.

They said further details will be announced at the appropriate time.

The Nigerian firm, which has more than 3 million customers in Africa's fast-growing mobile phone market, is said to be worth up to 1.4 billion US dollars

Vodacom pulled out of Nigeria last year two months after officially taking over the management of Vmobile, formerly called Econet Wireless Nigeria (EWN), over reasons of corporate governance and trust, but it reportedly reopened negotiation to acquire equity interest in the company last November.

Source: Xinhua