STOCKHOLM -- Atlantique Telecom, part of The Etisalat Group, today announced that it has entered a five year multi-country managed services agreement with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) to manage its entire mobile networks. During the past decade, the number of mobile connections in Africa has grown an average of 30% per year and the growth pace is not slowing down. Atlantique Telecom aims to develop offerings based on value-added services to its growing subscriber base, taking into account the specific requirements of each consumer and providing solutions tailored to their expectations. This agreement enables Etisalat to focus even more on their core business - delivering innovative offerings to their customers. Nagi Abboud, CEO of Atlantique Telecom said: "With the evolution of the competitive landscape in our markets, we need to adapt our operating model to provide a better service to our end users. Adopting this business outsourcing model is therefore an important step in our group strategy execution that will be for the benefit of our subscribers, who remain our top priority, and this will, as well, open new growth opportunities to our employees." The contract covers network operations, field maintenance, network optimization and spare parts management for Etisalat' s multivendor mobile networks, including access, core and transmission, as well as value added services. Ericsson AB