Vodafone has signed another partner market agreement, this time with Docomo Pacific, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s NTT Docomo, to provide services in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

“Docomo Pacific will benefit from access to Vodafone best practice and will be able to enhance its customer proposition in Guam and the CNMI with Vodafone’s products and services,” noted Vodafone in a statement. “Vodafone’s multinational corporate customers will benefit from the addition of Guam and the CNMI to their existing contracts for international managed services, while continuing to be serviced via a single point of contact.”

According to GSMA Intelligence, Docomo Pacific is Guam’s second-largest mobile operator with 52,000 connections and a 33 per cent market share.

The agreement takes the total number of Vodafone’s partner market agreements to 54 worldwide. It strikes such deals in markets where it doesn’t actually own and operate mobile networks or hold an equity stake in operations. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26 countries, claiming 438 million mobile customers.

This is Vodafone’s third partner agreement in Australasia and builds on Vodafone’s existing strategic partnership with NTT Docomo.

In June last year, NTT Docomo and Vodafone Group expanded their partnership to include the delivery of M2M services for enterprise customers.