Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Economy & income

Currency

• Australian dollar (AUD, $)
• ~1.43 AUD per USD (AUD/USD 0.6977, 14 Jul 2026)

GDP per capita

• n/a for CC — no territory-level GDP accounts (folded into Australia)
• Sovereign Australia: ~$64.8k nominal (World Bank 2024)
• ~$66.4k (IMF WEO 2025)
• PPP ~$77k (IMF WEO 2025 est.)

Average salary

• No CC wage series
• Numbeo has NO Cocos entry (population too small — flagged)
• Best CC proxy: median personal income ~A$741/wk (2021 census) ≈ A$3,210/mo ≈ ~$2,240 USD/mo gross-equiv (all persons 15+)
• Australia full-time adult avg ordinary earnings ~A$1,975/wk (ABS, late 2024) ≈ ~$5,900 USD/mo gross

Median salary

• ~$2,240 USD/mo — CC median personal income A$741/wk (2021 census, persons 15+)
• note it is personal income (incl. non-wage), not a pure salary median
• National median was A$805/wk

Minimum wage

• Australian national minimum wage applies: A$26.44/hr = A$1,004.90/wk from 1 Jul 2026 (~A$4,355/mo ≈ ~$3,040 USD/mo)
• was A$24.95/hr from 1 Jul 2025 (Fair Work Commission)

Cost of living

• High — remote Australian territory
• imported food/fuel/goods carry sea/air-freight premium over mainland WA
• Numbeo has NO Cocos entry (pop. too small — n/a)
• Housing largely government/community-provided

Digital landscape

Population

• ~593 (2021 census; est. ~600, 2025)
• NOTE: DataReportal publishes NO standalone 'Digital 2025 Cocos (Keeling) Islands' report — the territory is subsumed into Australia's Digital 2025
• figures below are the Australia proxy unless stated

Internet users

• n/a for CC specifically
• Australia proxy 97.1% (~26.1M, Jan 2025)
• CC has near-universal access via NBN Sky Muster satellite + IOTT 4G (boosted by 2022 Oman-Australia Cable spur), but no CC-only % is published

Social media users

• n/a for CC
• Australia proxy 77.9% (~20.9M identities, Jan 2025)

Mobile connections

• n/a for CC
• Australia proxy 34.4M cellular connections = 128% of population (Jan 2025)
• CC 4G via IOTT/MultiWave
• Telstra roaming works

Devices

• n/a for CC alone (StatCounter sample too small)
• Australia proxy (StatCounter, 2026): desktop ~53% / mobile ~42% / tablet ~4-5% — Australia is desktop-leaning
• Local Cocos-Malay users likely skew more mobile/Android than mainland

Ad spend

• n/a for CC — no standalone ad market (~600 people)
• any buys roll into Australia, a large mature market (national digital ad spend ~US$13B+ range, IAB AU / industry est.)
• No mobile-money ad ecosystem

Top social platforms

• YouTube — ~77.9% reach
• Facebook — ~64.1%
• LinkedIn — ~63.3%
• Instagram — ~53.1%
• TikTok — ~38% of adults
• Snapchat — ~30.8%

Messengers

• WhatsApp (dominant — Cocos-Malay ties to Malaysia/Indonesia; inferred)
• Facebook Messenger
• iMessage (high iOS share in AU)
• Snapchat

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Debit/credit cards — Visa, Mastercard, eftpos (dominant)
• Bank transfer / PayID / Osko (real-time)
• BPAY
• PayPal
• Buy-now-pay-later — Afterpay, Zip
• Apple Pay / Google Pay (contactless)

E-wallets

• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• PayPal
• Beem

Cash on delivery

• Low/negligible — this is an Australian card-and-bank-transfer economy
• goods ship prepaid from the mainland
• No cash-on-delivery culture and NO mobile-money (unlike a typical Tier-3 market)

E-commerce

• High by Australian norms, but CC is remote: freight cost & time from mainland (Australia Post / air-sea freight from Perth) is the real constraint
• Residents order online from mainland retailers

Notes

• All purchases run through Australian banks in AUD
• no CC-specific processors, wallets or COD/mobile-money rails

Audience & culture

Languages

• Cocos Malay dialect (~61% speak Malay at home, 2021 census)
• English (~19% at home; official language & lingua franca)

Religion

• Islam (Sunni) 65.6% (2021 census; ~80% among the Cocos-Malay community per older data)
• No religion 14.0%
• Catholic 2.0%
• remainder other/not stated

Median age

40 years (2021 census; 2 yrs above the Australian median)

Key seasons

• Ramadan & Eid al-Fitr / Hari Raya (major — Muslim-majority community; Islamic-calendar dates shift yearly)
• Eid al-Adha
• Australian public holidays (Christmas, Australia Day, EOFY)
• Dry/tourist season Apr-Oct (peak visitor months)
• Wet/monsoon Dec-Mar

Cultural notes

• Small, tight-knit Sunni-Muslim Cocos-Malay community: halal norms, modest imagery, family/community-centric
• strong linguistic-cultural ties to Malaysia & Indonesia
• At ~600 people word-of-mouth beats paid ads
• environmental sensitivity (pristine atoll) is strong

Where to find creators

• Facebook (community groups)
• WhatsApp
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube (tourism)

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

A

Aindil Minkom n/a

President of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Shire Council — current elected community leader (most notable living CC identity)

John Clunies-Ross n/a (historical)

19th-century Scottish trader, the original 'King of the Cocos'; his family ruled the islands for ~150 years (historical)

John Cecil Clunies-Ross n/a (historical)

The last 'King of the Cocos'; sold the family's sovereignty to Australia in 1978 (historical, d. 2021)

William Keeling n/a (historical)

English East India Company captain (1578-1620) after whom the 'Keeling' islands are named (historical)

Charles Darwin n/a (historical)

Studied the Cocos atoll in 1836 aboard HMS Beagle — basis for his coral-reef/atoll-formation theory (historical)

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• Finance / insurance / comparison
• Travel & inbound eco-tourism (the only CC-native angle — capped visitor numbers, flights from Perth)
• Retail / e-commerce
• Licensed sports/race betting
• Health & wellness (TGA-compliant)

Active networks

• Commission Factory (leading AU network)
• Rakuten Advertising
• Impact.com
• Awin
• Amazon Associates (AU)
• CJ (Commission Junction)

Payouts

• NOT genuinely Tier-3: Australia is a Tier-1 payout market (high CPMs/CPCs/CPA-CPL in AUD)
• The assigned 'Tier-3' tag is nominal only — a ~600-person CC audience cannot sustain standalone campaigns

Competition

• n/a at CC scale (no local market)
• Mainland Australia is a high-competition, high-CPC premium Tier-1 market

Seasonality

• Australian retail calendar: EOFY (Jun), Black Friday/Cyber Monday (Nov), Christmas (Dec), Back-to-school (Jan)
• plus Ramadan/Eid for the Muslim community

Traffic sources

• Meta (Facebook/Instagram)
• Google (Search + YouTube)
• TikTok
• Email / native

Good to know

Capital

West Island (administrative centre)

Major cities

• West Island (admin centre & airport, ~150 residents)
• Home Island / Bantam village (main Cocos-Malay settlement, ~450)

Time zones

• UTC+06:30 (Cocos Islands Time, CCT)
• no DST. 30 min behind Christmas Island (UTC+7)
• 1.5 h behind Perth

Android vs iOS

60% 44%

Android 60% iOS 44%

Phone brands

• Apple (~majority in AU)
• Samsung (~30%)
• Google / Oppo / Xiaomi (remainder) — AU proxy; local mix likely more Android/mid-range

Top e-commerce

• Amazon Australia
• eBay Australia
• Kmart / Target / Big W
• JB Hi-Fi
• The Iconic / Catch — all shipped from the mainland via Australia Post/freight with added delay

Peak activity

Evenings ~19:00-22:00 CCT (UTC+6:30) and weekends; Friday midday prayers. Audience is tiny (~600) — schedule around the Islamic calendar (Ramadan/Eid)

Creative taboos

• Muslim-majority Cocos-Malay community: avoid alcohol/pork/gambling promotion & immodest imagery, respect Ramadan, favour halal-relevant messaging
• Pristine-atoll environmental sensitivity is high
• the colonial Clunies-Ross history is a delicate subject

Also worth knowing

1. Not a real standalone affiliate market — ~600 people; 'CC' traffic is a rounding error that rolls up into Australia (Tier-1 payouts/CPMs), so the Tier-3 framing does NOT fit: no COD, no mobile-money, Australian cards/banks only.
2. The single CC-native commercial angle is inbound eco-tourism (visitor-capped, twice-weekly QantasLink flights from Perth).
3. Cultural/linguistic bridge to Malaysia/Indonesia (Cocos Malay) means WhatsApp + Malay-language content resonate; connectivity is NBN Sky Muster satellite + IOTT 4G, improved by the 2022 Oman-Australia Cable spur