BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: There will be a consolidation of mobile companies in Europe, making it more like China, India and the United States, says the chief executive of Mobistar, Belgium's second-biggest mobile phone operator.

"If you look at the United States, there are now only four main mobile phone companies for a market of 280 million people, in China and India it's the same.

"In Europe, for 300 million inhabitants, we still have tens of operators," Benoit Scheen told daily paper La Libre Belgique in an interview published on Wednesday.

"It will be difficult for small operators, like in our country, to carry on in the long term without at least getting partnership deals with big operators."

In Belgium, Mobistar, which is majority-owned by France Telecom, competes with former state monopoly Belgacom and Base, a subsidiary of Dutch Koninklijke KPN.