E-commerce in Mauritania

E-commerce

Internet access

Internet access is unrestricted in Mauritania, but its penetration is still low. By the end of 2017, Mauritania had a population of 4.5 million people, out of which 810,000 were internet users, making the penetration rate 17.8 %, a growth of 14% compared to 2016. Mobile telephone services, in contrast, have a penetration rate over 110%. In 2017, 41% of the population had access to 3G coverage, while 4G was nonexistent. Additionally, 11.2% of households had Internet access, while only 5% of households had a computer. The World Bank has supported the country in defining an overall strategy based on developing access for all citizens by stimulating private investment in broadband internet. Through their funding, mobile and fixed-wireless operators are also providing fixed services in rural areas. It is possible to access the internet in any reasonably sized town, although outside Nouakchott connection speeds can often be wanting. Tariffs are around UM 200 (EUR 0.5) per hour. Top-end and mid-range hotels and many restaurants in Nouakchott and Nouadhibou generally offer free wi-fi. For the past 15 years, the Government, along with the telecommunication operators, have been making efforts to improve connectivity rates in the country and reduce the digital divide, which have been showing results. Both the Government and the operators have plans to further develop countrywide high-speed networks by licensing LTE services, expanding satellite broadband coverage and rolling out fibre-to-the-home network in the capital and main cities. Extensive efforts are made to roll out fibre backbone infrastructure between major cities, and to cover rural areas with satellite broadband services. Facebook is used by 770,000 people. YouTube is becoming increasingly popular (18% in June 2018). Meanwhile Twitter and Instagram are still rarely used (2% and 0.05%). As of September 2018, the most popular browsers in the country by market share were Chrome (74.61%), Opera (5.13%), Safari (5.05%), Samsung Internet (4.78%), Android (4.04%), and Firefox (3.1%).  As for search engines, Google (97.25%) was by far the most popular one, followed by Yahoo! (1.23%), Bing (0.92%), and Baidu (0.17%).

E-commerce market

E-commerce is not developed in the country and there's no updated data available. Internet users purchase mainly consumer electronics through adorama.com and woocommerce.com.