Madagascar’s Operators Push Ahead in the Race for Connectivity

According to GSMA Intelligence, Madagascar had around 18.2 million active cellular mobile connections at the start of 2025. It’s worth noting that many people use more than one SIM or subscription, so mobile connection counts often surpass the number of individuals in the country. Someone might carry one line for personal calls and another for work, and the growing availability of eSIMs has made juggling multiple connections even easier.

In Madagascar, however, the total number of mobile lines has not yet overtaken the population itself. GSMA estimates show that in January 2025, active connections were equivalent to 56.2% of the country’s population.

The market has still been growing at a healthy pace. Between early 2024 and early 2025, the total number of connections rose by 1.4 mil, an increase of 8.5% year on year.

Most of these lines are already broadband-capable. GSMA’s data suggests that 84.6% of connections now run on 3G, 4G, or 5G networks. That doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are used for mobile internet, though, since some subscriptions provide only voice and SMS services.

The leading mobile operators in Madagascar are Telma (Yas), Airtel, and Orange. Market shares are Yas about 50%, Orange about 30%, Airtel about 7%, and SpaceX Starlink around 10% of Madagascar’s internet market as of 2024–2025.

As of early 2025, about 6.6 million Malagasy were online, roughly 20.4% of the population, leaving about 25.8 million people offline. 4G coverage reaches roughly 71% of the population, while overall mobile signal availability sits around 92%.

The market is highly concentrated, but rivalry among the major players is pushing network upgrades. The recent entry of satellite provider Starlink is also intensifying competition, particularly for internet access in underserved areas.

Yas, previously known as Telma Madagascar until its rebranding in late November 2024, is the long-standing market leader in Madagascar’s mobile telecom sector with approximately 5 million mobile subscribers.

In mid-2020, Yas made history by launching Africa’s first commercial 5G service in Antananarivo and Toamasina, in partnership with Ericsson. but broader rollout remains limited with only about 7% of the population having 5G access by 2025. Although the regulator ARTEC later raised technical and permission issues that temporarily delayed further 5G expansion, Yas continues to invest in its core network and fibre infrastructure, positioning itself for future advanced mobile deployments.

Airtel Madagascar is firmly positioned in second place in subscriber count, with around 4.9 million users. 

In May 2025, the company secured a forward-looking 15-year global operating license valued at $32.5 million, reinforcing its commitment to long-term infrastructure development and service expansion. In 2021, Airtel divested its passive tower infrastructure in Madagascar to Helios Towers for about $52 million, using the proceeds to reduce debt and fund improvements in its network and sales footprint. While Airtel has not publicly announced a 5G rollout plan, its strategic investments indicate reparatory groundwork for the future market shift.

Orange Madagascar holds the third-largest share of mobile subscriptions, trailing behind Yas and Airtel, with around 3.3 million customers.

In December 2023, Orange secured a €30 million comprehensive global license that empowers it to deliver services across multiple platforms, including mobile, fixed, satellite, and fiber networks. The agreement involves the deployment of up to 500 rural networking telecommunication sites under the NaaS business model in the east coast of Madagascar.

The operator planned to boost its population coverage from approximately 56 percent to 90 percent by the end of 2024, supported by a multilayered rollout of 500 new rural base stations through partnerships with NuRAN Wireless and AMN under a Network-as-a-Service model. Whether they have been successful is yet to be conformed. 

Although Orange has not yet launched full commercial 5G, it opened a local 5G Lab in September 2023 to showcase 5G technology and support co-innovations with businesses and developers.

Madagascar’s internet sector is entering a period of rapid change. Long hampered by limited coverage and fragile infrastructure, the country is now seeing fresh investment and new technologies that promise to narrow its digital divide. Mobile networks are steadily reaching deeper into rural regions, while the arrival of satellite services such as Starlink adds another layer of connectivity. Together, these shifts are setting the stage for what many describe as an internet revolution.

Currently Yas remains the dominant operator with pioneering 5G credentials. Orange is accelerating coverage expansion and pioneering 5G exploration through its innovation lab. Airtel is strengthening its position with strategic licensing and infrastructure reinvestments. For consumers in Madagascar, the immediate benefit continues to lie in improving 4G performance and wider coverage, while next-generation 5G adoption unfolds gradually.

Related Posts: 

• Operator Watch Blog: Madagascar gets 5G but 2G, 3G & 4G coverage still very patchy 

Madagascar gets 5G but 2G, 3G & 4G coverage still very patchy

Madagascar’s economy has grown steadily in recent years and the revived tourist sector has helped immensely. Plans to extract and export crude oil, gas and other natural resources may also deliver a boost to the economy in future.

This period of economic growth is helping to increase consumer spend on telecom services. These services are becoming cheaper as a result of intensifying competition between the main operators, including Orange Madagascar, Bharti Airtel (formerly Zain) and the incumbent telco Telma. A fourth mobile operator, Blueline, now operates its own network having been an MVNO since 2010.

Positive developments in the internet and broadband sector are also the result of the first international submarine fibre optic cables, LION and EASSy on the island in 2009 and 2010. This ended the country’s dependency on satellites for international connections, bringing down the cost of international bandwidth and making internet access more affordable to a large part of the population. The IOX cable  the METISS submarine cable and the Africa-1 cable are expected to provide additional links to the African mainland and other international cable systems.

Penetration rates in all market sectors are still below African averages, and so there remains excellent potential for growth.

These network operators are on the air covering the country in 2G on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz and 3G on 2100 MHz: Airtel,  Telma (Telecom Malagasy), Orange and bip by Blueline (only 3G, 4G/TD-LTE). Network coverage is still somewhat patchy in the country. There are areas without any signal. 3G with reasonable speeds can only be expected in towns. 4G/LTE started with Telma in 2015 in 50 cities and Orange and Airtel started in 2017 in a few towns so far.

The first three operators share about 1/3 of the market each. Blueline started in 2014 with 3G and 4G/LTE in the capital of Antananarivo only. In 2016 their mobile brand called bip launched all over the country as 4th operator.

Telma short for Telecom Malagasy, is run by the now privatized incumbent operator of the country. They started 4G/LTE as first provider in 2015 in about 50 cities on 2600 MHz (Band 7): Coverage Map. Coverage can be patchy outside of major towns.

A national fibre backbone is being implemented connecting the major cities, and Telma expects to invest an additional $250 million to expand the backbone network from 5,000km to 11,000km by 2019. Wireless broadband access networks are being rolled out, enabling converged voice, data and entertainment services. The launch of 3G and LTE mobile broadband services has enabled the mobile operators to reverse their rapidly declining average revenue per user (ARPU).The fixed-line sector has been undergoing a revolution following the privatisation of Telma. Upgraded DSL services have been introduced and the decline in fixed-line revenue has been reversed. Despite these positive developments, the national telco is considering various divestiture options.



Last month, Telma Madagascar switched on the country’s first 5G commercial network in multiple cities with the help of Ericsson. Specifically, the Swedish vendor was selected by the operator last October to upgrade its core and radio network. For Madagascar, there have been two critical use cases that have emerged for 5G: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). Activated on Telma’s 3.6-3.7 GHz mid-band, the network, according to Ericsson, uses the latest radio access and transport products from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio.

Airtel, run by Indian Bharti Airtel, was called Madacom, Celtel and Zain before and has still the most customers on its net. It's coverage is very variable, see coverage map.

Orange covers 85% of population on 2G and about 150 towns on 3G in 2015. Some call it the best coverage in the country, but this is very variable. A new licence allows the operator to offer 4G services on 1800 MHz, testing for which began taking place in 2016. It was finally launched 2017 in Anatananarivo and 8 other towns.

In 2016 the 4th operator in Madagascar started called bip. It only offers 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE. The coverage is said to be "in all 22 regions" of the country. This is probably archieved through a national roaming agreement between Blueline and Telma. ISP Gulfsat Madagascar, which operates under the Blueline banner offers 3G and 4G/LTE internet in the capital of Anatanarivo only. This is not so suitable for traveller, but more like a substitute for home ADSL. 3G is probably through their roaming agreement with Telma, 4G/LTE is on their own TD-LTE in 2500 MHz (band 41) which is rather unusual.