Mali has a population of 16.0 million1 and is served by 2 mobile network operators: Orange and Sotelma-Malitel2. A third operator, Planor, received a 15 year license in January 2013 for which it paid $105M. With 13.5 million subscribers3, penetration is estimated at 85%, up from 10.8M in 20114. When one considers that almost 48% of the population is 14 years old or younger then this penetration must be considered very high indeed. Orange introduced 3G services in May 20105 and Sotelma-Malitel offers a 3G data service in specified areas.
![Mali_Piechart](https://assets.euromoneydigital.com/dims4/default/386a76b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/460x241+0+0/resize/800x419!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feuromoney-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F61%2Fe6%2Fd05ec4310e6f60caf6af4a65579b%2Fmali-piechart.png)