Digital 2021: Malawi

You’ll find our complete #Digital2021 report for Malawi in the SlideShare embed above (click here if that’s not working for you).

This report contains all the latest internet stats, mobile stats, and social media stats for Malawi, but read on below for essential insights into digital use in Malawi in 2021.

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Malawi’s population

  • Malawi had a population of 19.39 million in January 2021.

  • Malawi’s population increased by 508 thousand (+2.7%) between January 2020 and January 2021.

  • 50.7% of Malawi’s population is female, while 49.3% of its population is male [note: the United Nations does not publish data for genders other than ‘female’ and ‘male’].

  • 17.6% of Malawi’s population lives in urban centres, while 82.4% lives in rural areas.

Internet users in Malawi

  • There were 3.45 million internet users in Malawi in January 2021.

  • The number of internet users in Malawi increased by 639 thousand (+23%) between 2020 and 2021.

  • Internet penetration in Malawi stood at 17.8% in January 2021.

Note: we no longer include data sourced from social media platforms in our internet user numbers, so the numbers shown above and in our complete Digital 2021 reports are not comparable with numbers published in our reports from previous years.

Social media statistics for Malawi

  • There were 670.0 thousand social media users in Malawi in January 2021.

  • The number of social media users in Malawi increased by 160 thousand (+31%) between 2020 and 2021.

  • The number of social media users in Malawi was equivalent to 3.5% of the total population in January 2021.

Note: Figures for social media users shown here and in our complete Digital 2021 reports may not equate to unique individuals. We have also included new sources in this year’s social media figures, so numbers shown here and in our Digital 2021 reports will not be comparable with numbers published in our previous reports.

Mobile connections in Malawi

  • There were 8.27 million mobile connections in Malawi in January 2021.

  • The number of mobile connections in Malawi increased by 74 thousand (+0.9%) between January 2020 and January 2021.

  • The number of mobile connections in Malawi in January 2021 was equivalent to 42.7% of the total population.

Note: many people have more than one mobile connection, so figures for mobile connections may exceed 100% of the total population.

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Additional resources

Still need more data? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Click here to see all of our published reports for Malawi.

  • Explore all of our reports for countries across Eastern Africa.

  • Click here to browse our complete library of published reports.

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