Daily News  :: Southern Africa

Luanda - Internet search leader Google was eyeing acquisitions in Portugal that could help the US firm expand into Africa, a senior company official said.

"We want to enter Africa, not through fixed-line Internet access, but through mobile access. We think it would be easier if we worked with countries that work directly with these nations," Google head of European corporate development Anil Hansjee told Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias.

"It (the Portuguese market) is a small market, which can be good to test business models, something that is difficult to do in big markets," he added.

Many Portuguese IT and telecommunications firms were active in Portugal's five former African colonies - Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe - that gained independence in the mid-1970s.

Former state monopoly Portugal Telecom has around four million mobile subscribers in Africa where it operates in former Portuguese colonies as well as Morocco.

Founded in 1998 by Stanford university students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google was headquartered in Silicon Valley in the US with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. Sapa-AFP