Madagascar

Economy & income

Currency

• Malagasy ariary (MGA, Ar)
• ~4,250 per USD (Jul 2026, floating)
• one of only two non-decimal currencies (1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja)

GDP per capita

• ~$530 nominal (2025 est., World Bank/IMF)
• ~$1,657 PPP (2024, World Bank), IMF WEO ~$1,720 PPP (2025) — one of the world's lowest

Average salary

• ~$130 net/mo (Numbeo Antananarivo median after-tax, Dec 2025 — thin sample)
• formal-sector gross higher but ~95% of workers are informal/subsistence and earn far less

Median salary

• ~$129 net/mo (Numbeo Antananarivo, Dec 2025)
• no reliable official national median — huge informal economy makes any figure indicative only

Minimum wage

• SMIG 300,000 Ar/mo (~$70) since 1 Mar 2026, rising to 315,000 Ar (~$74) from Oct 2026
• agricultural SMAG is lower (source: Ministry of Labour / Newsmada 2026)

Cost of living

• Low — among the world's cheapest capitals
• Numbeo single-person estimate ~3.1M Ar (~$730)/mo excl. rent (Antananarivo, Dec 2025) but sample is thin/expat-skewed and sits well above local wages, so treat as indicative

Digital landscape

Population

32.4 million (Jan 2025); 41.6% urban, median age 19.2

Internet users

20.4% (~6.60 million users, Jan 2025); ~25.8M still offline

Social media users

• 12.1% (~3.90 million identities, Jan 2025)
• 53.2% male / 46.8% female

Mobile connections

• 18.2 million cellular connections = 56.2% of population (Jan 2025)
• 84.6% on 3G/4G/5G

Devices

mobile ~54.2% / desktop ~45.0% / tablet ~0.7% (StatCounter, Jun 2026) — desktop share unusually high for the region (shared PCs, cybercafés)

Ad spend

• n/a — DataReportal does not publish a headline digital ad-spend figure for Madagascar
• market too small
• Buying runs through Meta, TikTok and Google auctions
• digital spend negligible in global terms

Top social platforms

Facebook ~3.90M reach, 12.1% of pop — dominant social + commerce platform

Facebook Messenger ~1.20M, 3.7% of pop

LinkedIn ~520K, 1.6% of pop

Instagram ~218K, 0.7% of pop

X/Twitter ~34.6K, 0.1%

• TikTok — fast-growing; no local ad-reach published in DataReportal, but 100+ Malagasy creators & rising Reels/short-video use
• YouTube — widely used for music/video; not in Meta ad-reach dataset

Messengers

• Facebook Messenger (~1.20M, ad-reported — primary chat app alongside Facebook)
• WhatsApp (widely used for personal/business chat & France diaspora; not in Meta ad list)
• Telegram (smaller, growing among younger/urban users)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Cash (dominant; large unbanked majority)
• Mobile money — MVola (Telma), Orange Money and Airtel Money (three-way interoperable since 2018; wallets exceed bank accounts)
• Cash on delivery (default for e-commerce)
• Bank cards Visa/Mastercard (low penetration; urban/formal & travel only)
• Remittances via Western Union/MoneyGram (inbound from France diaspora, now payable to mobile wallets)

E-wallets

• MVola (Telma — market leader)
• Orange Money
• Airtel Money

Cash on delivery

• High — cash-on-delivery / cash-in-hand is the default for online orders
• card-not-present trust is low

E-commerce

• Very low / nascent — most online selling happens via Facebook social commerce
• e-varotra.mg is the main local multi-vendor marketplace (integrates MVola/Orange/Airtel + COD)
• Jumia is not clearly operating in-country

Notes

• Mobile-money subscribers have exceeded traditional bank customers since 2012
• ~164,000 agents and thousands of cash-out points form the key rail
• A proposed mobile-money transaction tax (2024) was fiercely opposed by operators
• Plan for mobile-money + COD, not cards.

Audience & culture

Languages

• Malagasy — official, native lingua franca (~99.9% of population)
• French — official, language of business/administration & much online content (~24% functional)
• English — minority, growing in tourism/business (~8%)

Religion

• Christianity ~85% (Protestant + Roman Catholic ~32% each split)
• traditional/folk beliefs & ancestor veneration (fomba) widely practiced alongside
• Islam ~3-7% minority

Median age

• 19.2 years (DataReportal, Jan 2025)
• ~20.5 (2025 est.) — very young population

Key seasons

• Independence Day (26 June) — 'Asaramanitra', biggest national celebration & spending window
• Christmas / New Year (Krismasy) — peak consumer season
• Alahamady Be — Malagasy lunar New Year (around March)
• Famadihana — 'turning of the bones' reburial ceremonies (Jun-Sep, dry season) — large family/status spending
• Back-to-school (rentrée, ~Sept-Oct)

Cultural notes

• Price-sensitive, mobile-first, Facebook-centric audience
• ancestor/family traditions (fomba, famadihana) drive status spending
• French + Malagasy creatives both needed
• large France-based diaspora consumes French-language content and funds consumption via remittances
• Trust built through community, radio and word-of-mouth.

Where to find creators

• Facebook
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Diaspora creators based in France

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Eusèbe Jaojoby n/a exact (legacy artist; modest social presence)

Musician — 'King of Salegy', most popular singer of Madagascar & the Indian Ocean; UNFPA goodwill ambassador

Andry Rajoelina n/a exact (large Facebook following)

President of Madagascar (politics — sensitive for brand use)

Faneva Imà Andriatsima n/a exact (modest)

Footballer — striker & national-team captain, AFCON 2019 quarter-final run

Justin Vali n/a exact (world-music circuit)

Valiha (national instrument) virtuoso; international world-music star (Peter Gabriel's Real World)

D'Gary (Ernest Randrianasolo) n/a exact (world-music circuit)

Acclaimed acoustic guitarist known for alternative tunings; international audience

A

AmbondronA n/a exact (band; modest social)

Leading Malagasy pop-rock band; one of the country's most popular contemporary acts

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• iGaming / sports betting (grey but accessible)
• Sweepstakes & lottery
• Mobile VAS / pin-submit / app installs
• Dating
• Nutra / health & beauty
• Finance — microloans / mobile-money / crypto P2P
• E-commerce (COD physical products)

Active networks

• No notable Madagascar-specific network; global self-serve CPA/ad networks reach it via Francophone/Sub-Saharan Africa targeting
• Adsterra, Monetag (ex-PropellerAds) — pop/push/display
• Mobidea and mobile-VAS/subscription aggregators
• iGaming affiliate programs (Mostbet/1win/Betwinner-style brands) targeting the grey betting audience

Payouts

• Tier-3 low: very cheap CPMs
• CPI/CPL often ~$0.05-0.50
• betting CPA typically ~$10-40 per FTD
• mVAS low. Monetization capped by COD/mobile-money habits and low card penetration — a volume/testing market, not a payout market

Competition

• Low-to-moderate — small online audience (~6.6M) and modest advertiser interest
• cheap inventory but limited scale and low ARPU

Seasonality

• Lifts around Independence Day (June), Christmas/New Year and payday cycles
• famadihana season (Jun-Sep) raises family spending

Traffic sources

• Facebook & Messenger (primary)
• TikTok
• Google / YouTube
• Push / in-app / pop (Adsterra, Monetag)
• Telegram & SMS

Good to know

Capital

Antananarivo (Tana)

Major cities

• Antananarivo
• Toamasina (Tamatave)
• Antsirabe
• Fianarantsoa
• Mahajanga (Majunga)
• Toliara (Tuléar)
• Antsiranana (Diego-Suarez)

Time zones

Single time zone — East Africa Time (EAT), UTC+3, no DST

Android vs iOS

94%

Android 94% iOS 6%

Phone brands

• Xiaomi (~22%, StatCounter Jun 2026 — leader)
• Huawei (~13%)
• Oppo (~12%)
• Samsung (~9%)
• Apple iPhone (~6%, affluent/diaspora)
• Transsion budget Androids — Tecno / Infinix / Itel also common at the low end

Top e-commerce

• Facebook / Messenger social commerce (dominant channel)
• e-varotra.mg (main local multi-vendor marketplace; MVola/Orange/Airtel + COD)
• Classifieds & seller groups
• Diaspora-facilitated cross-border orders from France

Peak activity

Evenings ~18:00-22:00 EAT (after work, home Wi-Fi/mobile data) and lunchtime ~12:00-13:00; weekends higher. Facebook is the anchor surface for reach

Creative taboos

• Politics is highly sensitive (recent unrest)
• avoid explicit nudity/adult content and overt gambling pitched to locals given conservative Christian norms
• Respect ancestor traditions (famadihana, fomba) — don't mock them
• Language: pair French with Malagasy for trust and reach

Also worth knowing

1. A cash & mobile-money, COD-first, ultra-low-CPM Tier-3 market — treat as a volume/testing geo, not a payout geo.
2. Facebook is effectively 'the internet' for social + commerce; TikTok and YouTube are rising fast for creators but aren't in the Meta ad-reach dataset.
3. The France-based diaspora is far more monetizable than in-country users and consumes the same French-language content, so diaspora targeting often outperforms domestic.