Mauritania

Economy & income

Currency

• Mauritanian ouguiya (MRU, symbol UM)
• ~40 MRU per USD (Jul 2026)

GDP per capita

• ~$2,083 nominal (2024, World Bank)
• ~$6,400 PPP (2024, World Bank/Trading Economics)

Average salary

• Thin/unreliable — payroll aggregators cite gross ~15,000–30,000 MRU/mo (~$375–750) for formal/public-sector jobs, but figures are contested, skew high, and several sites conflate Mauritania with Mauritius
• no official ILO/NSO wage published
• Most workers are informal/subsistence.

Median salary

• n/a — no reliable published national median wage (ONS Mauritania / ILO do not publish one)
• large informal economy makes any median unrepresentative.

Minimum wage

SMIG 4,500 MRU/mo (25.962 MRU/hr, 40-hr week; agricultural 24.612 MRU/hr), effective 1 Jan 2023 — ~$112/mo at ~40 MRU/USD (source: CLEISS / govt).

Cost of living

• Low. Numbeo dataset for Mauritania is very sparse (few contributors) — treat with caution
• Nouakchott moderate by regional standards but imported goods are costly (2024–25).

Digital landscape

Population

5.24 million (Jan 2025)

Internet users

37.4% (~1.96 million users; +2.9% YoY)

Social media users

29.9% (~1.57 million identities; +26.4% YoY, 79.9% of internet users)

Mobile connections

6.14 million cellular connections = 117% of population

Devices

mobile ~72.8% / desktop ~26.2% / tablet ~1.0% (StatCounter, Jun 2026)

Ad spend

• n/a — DataReportal reports no separate digital ad-spend figure for Mauritania (market too small to break out)
• spend concentrates on TV/radio, press and Facebook, mostly Arabic/French.

Top social platforms

TikTok ~1.57M ad reach 18+ — fastest-growing, rivals Facebook

Facebook ~1.30M; 66.3% of internet users

Facebook Messenger ~367K

LinkedIn ~160K

Instagram ~158K

X/Twitter ~50.6K

Messengers

• WhatsApp (dominant — de-facto storefront + chat)
• Facebook Messenger (~367K)
• Snapchat (youth/influencers)
• Telegram (secondary)
• imo (calls, common in West Africa)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Cash / Cash-on-delivery (COD) — dominant, especially outside Nouakchott
• Bankily (mobile wallet, GBM — market leader by users & volume)
• Masrvi (mobile wallet)
• Sedad / Amanty / Click (mobile wallets)
• Mobile money (TasiPay, MobiCash — growing)
• Bank cards (very low penetration)

E-wallets

• Bankily
• Masrvi
• Sedad
• Amanty
• Click
• BimBank

Cash on delivery

• Very high — COD is the default for e-commerce
• trust-based, tied to low card penetration and thin banking outside cities.

E-commerce

• Low & informal — commerce runs mainly through WhatsApp and Facebook boutique/vendor pages with e-banking transfers
• no major local marketplace
• global marketplaces (Jumia/Amazon) not locally operated (cross-border via forwarders).

Notes

• BCM is driving a national switch / interoperable mobile-payment project
• Bankily and Masrvi are the rails merchants and affiliates target for checkout.

Audience & culture

Languages

• Arabic — official (Hassaniya dialect, ~83% mother tongue)
• French — business/education/media, widely used
• Pulaar/Fula (~5%, national language)
• Soninke (~1%, national language)
• Wolof (~0.3%, national language)

Religion

• ~99–100% Sunni Muslim (Maliki school)
• Islam is the state religion
• tiny (mostly foreign) Christian minority.

Median age

17.4 years (DataReportal 2025)

Key seasons

• Ramadan (nighttime engagement & spending spike)
• Eid al-Fitr
• Eid al-Adha / Tabaski (livestock & gift spending)
• Mawlid (Prophet's birthday)
• Gétna date-harvest season (Jul–Aug, family travel to palm groves)
• Back-to-school (Oct)
• Independence Day (28 Nov)

Cultural notes

• Conservative Islamic society — modest imagery essential (no alcohol/nudity/gambling)
• Mobile- and WhatsApp-first, price-sensitive, trust-driven (COD, word-of-mouth)
• Arabic + French creatives
• Ramadan nights are the peak commercial window.

Where to find creators

• TikTok
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• YouTube (Fédération des Influenceurs Mauritaniens / FIM formed 2024)

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

A

Assia Houssein n/a exact — leading MR beauty & lifestyle influencer (active since 2020)

Instagram/TikTok/Snapchatbeauty, wellness, lifestyle & advocacy — brand-safe for cosmetics/nutra

S

Selma Fall n/a exact — co-founder of the Mauritanian Influencers Federation (FIM)

TikToklifestyle/entertainment — youth reach

M

Mouna Guennaya n/a exact — FIM co-founder

Instagram/TikToklifestyle — female audience

A

Abdulrahman Aboubecrin ~127K YouTube

YouTubelocal Arabic-language content — general/entertainment

Noura Mint Seymali ~90K Instagram

YouTube/Instagramgriot/Moorish music — cultural, international profile

Aboubakar Kamara ~54K Instagram

Instagramfootballer (Mauritania NT) — sports/lifestyle

Celebrities

Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani n/a Instagram (public figure)

President of Mauritania (since 2019, re-elected 2024)

M

Mohamed El Hassan Ould Dedew ~759K YouTube

Prominent Islamic scholar/preacher (huge regional following)

Malouma n/a exact

Singer-songwriter & former senator (blues/traditional fusion)

Biram Dah Abeid n/a exact

Anti-slavery activist & opposition politician (presidential candidate)

Aboubakar Kamara ~54K Instagram

Footballer (ex-Fulham, Mauritania national team striker)

D

Dimi Mint Abba n/a (legacy)

Legendary Mauritanian singer (d. 2011) — iconic 'diva of the desert'

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• Nutra COD (beauty, weight-loss, vitality/male-enhancement)
• E-commerce COD (gadgets, watches, cosmetics)
• mVAS / mobile subscriptions & content
• Utility apps / VPN / antivirus
• Sweepstakes (lightweight)

Active networks

• AdCombo (COD nutra)
• Dr.Cash (nutra/Arab GEO)
• Everad
• Golden Goose
• Mobidea (mobile/mVAS)
• LeadBit
• Adsterra / Monetag (traffic + CPA)

Payouts

• Low Tier-3 payouts: nutra COD CPA ~$4–12
• mVAS/CPI ~$0.05–0.60
• leads low. CPMs are among the cheapest — volume play, watch COD approval/delivery rates.

Competition

• Low-to-moderate — small market with cheap CPMs and few local affiliates
• usually run inside broader 'Africa' or 'Arab/MENA GEO' COD bundles rather than as a standalone geo.

Seasonality

• Ramadan is the peak (late-night engagement + spending)
• Eid al-Fitr & Eid al-Adha spikes
• summer Gétna season
• back-to-school in October.

Traffic sources

• Facebook/Meta ads
• TikTok ads
• Push & pop (PropellerAds/Adsterra)
• Native
• In-app / Google UAC
• Influencer + WhatsApp broadcast

Good to know

Capital

Nouakchott

Major cities

• Nouakchott
• Nouadhibou
• Kiffa
• Kaédi
• Rosso
• Zouérat
• Néma
• Atâr

Time zones

Single time zone — GMT (UTC+0), no daylight saving.

Android vs iOS

57% 43%

Android 57% iOS 43%

Phone brands

• Samsung
• Transsion — Tecno/Infinix/itel
• Apple/iPhone (notably high, iOS ~43%)
• Xiaomi (exact shares n/a — avoid over-precision)

Top e-commerce

• WhatsApp boutique/vendor pages (dominant social commerce)
• Facebook Marketplace / vendor pages
• Local classifieds & boutique sites
• Cross-border marketplaces via forwarders (no local Jumia/Amazon operation)

Peak activity

Evenings ~20:00–24:00 GMT (post-Isha); late-night surge during Ramadan; midday lull around Friday prayers.

Creative taboos

• No content insulting Islam (legally enforced)
• no alcohol/pork/gambling/nudity or immodest imagery
• LGBTQ content illegal & taboo
• slavery/Haratin & Arab–Afro-Mauritanian ethnic tensions are highly sensitive
• government/political criticism is censored.

Also worth knowing

1. WhatsApp is the de-facto storefront and checkout — pair COD with Bankily/Masrvi wallets.
2. Unusually high iOS share (~43%) among the urban elite despite low incomes — a real segment for premium/iOS offers.
3. TikTok exploded (+26% YoY social growth) and now rivals Facebook — short-video in Arabic/French plus COD nutra is the workable affiliate play; gambling/dating/adult are legally and culturally blocked.