21/01/2019. I don’t know about you, but at Stileex, the new year has started with many projects in the starting blocks, and stars in the sky. And to celebrate the New Year as it begins, what better way to celebrate than to take a quick look back at the highlights we’ve discovered together about the country and its people? A Madagascar 2018 retrospective with Stileex sauce!
Reading, Facebook and media
2018 was the occasion to discover that 64% of Malagasy people still liked to read! A more than encouraging figure, especially when we know that 62% of them say they have time to read all their drunk (the happy people here…).
Of course, we read mostly French (66%), but also Malagasy (55%). Generally speaking, our favourite readings are those about personal development (61%), love (24%) and religion (11%).
We also discovered that Facebook was THE first social network of the place, a platform where are 98% of the people registered to a social network. But it gets better: 83% of these subscribers are active nowhere else but on Facebook! As for why they use it, 50% say they go there to keep in touch with their friends and family, 16% to see the news and 8% to meet people.
Let’s talk about the news. While 70% of Tananarivians follow the news more or less with interest, 71% of them think that the work of Malagasy journalists is influenced either by money or by politicians.
Still for the people of Tananarivo, the most reliable medium is TV, accounting for 73% of the vote. A media that attracts, precisely, 73% of the Tananarivians (local TV audience).
The second most reliable medium is radio: 15% consider it so. Here, 63% of Tananarivians are used to listening to it. Finally, in third place, but far behind, are newspapers (8%), a medium that 42% of Tananarivians are accustomed to following.
Where you go for shopping, the cost of living and JIRAMA
Let’s continue our Madagascar 2018 retrospective on the consumption side. In 2018, we have also seen that the Malagasy people largely preferred to make their markets on the side of the traditional “tsena”. Informal or not, small in size or not, these markets attracted the preference of 89% of respondents. In comparison, going to supermarkets only convinced 13% of them. Can you blame them when you know what the country is going through?
In fact, when asked about the cost of living, 89% of them find it… very expensive! That’s what I’m saying. And among the items that have had the greatest impact in the last 5 years, we have food (44%), petrol (21%) and rice (18%).
As for JIRAMA, it was mentioned, but by a very limited number of respondents. As it stands, however, 77% of respondents in the capital have electricity and 39% have water. It was also found that half of the “electricity” subscribers (52%) suffered recurrent cuts in supply and, more seriously, one third of the “water” subscribers (34%).
Retrospective Madagascar 2018: the question of security!
Let’s finally end this 2018 round with the security as it was perceived by the Tananarivians. According to the media, 2018 has been a hecatomb of homejacking (vaky trano), robberies and violent assaults. What has it really been?
After questioning the first people concerned, it emerged that a quarter of Tananarivians have already been assaulted (25%). It also emerged that 38% have already witnessed an assault, 66% know someone who has already been assaulted, and 71% do not feel safe at all in the city (39% feel the same, but at home!).
Obviously, the time when one is most assaulted is at night (39%), but, against all odds, in the morning as well (23%).
And that’s it for this retrospective Madagascar 2018, a look back in numbers on this year which has seen a lot of revelations on the habits and behaviours of Malagasy people.
I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all, dear readers, a very happy new year 2019 on behalf of the entire Stileex team. May prosperity, health and success be showered upon you like a rain shower in the middle of the hurricane season.
