Language

Official language
Spanish, with 480 million native speakers and a thriving online population of more than 330 million, Spanish is the world’s second most common language after Chinese and far surpasses English.

T-index
0.55%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Portuguese, Italian, German, English and French.

Indigenous languages
Mapuche, Guarani, Aymara, Toba and Quechua.

English
High proficiency (EF) – 30 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 1/20 position in Latin America.

Demography

Capital: Buenos Aires
Currency: Argentine peso
Population: 45,81 m
Population density: 17/km2

Economy

GDP: 491.49 billion USD (2021)
GDP per capita: 10,729.2 USD ‎(2021) ‎
Exports: $54.6 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 83% penetration, 38.02 million
Unemployment rate: 8.7% (2021)
Urbanisation: 91.99% (2020)
Literacy: 99.13 % (2019)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator

Date format: dd – mm – yyyy
Time: 12h time system (a.m/p.m)
Country code: 0054

Economy

Imports
$42.1 billion (2020). Cars ($1.77B), Soybeans ($1.76B), Vehicle Parts ($1.71B), Refined Petroleum ($1.25B), and Petroleum Gas ($1.17B), importing mostly from Brazil ($8.57B), China ($8.34B), United States ($5.02B), Germany ($2.13B), and Paraguay ($2.13B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 48% have an account with a financial institution
• 24% have a credit card
• 2.4% have a mobile money account
• 19% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
Ease of conducting business is medium (rated 59 out of 100). Ranked 19th out of 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Ranked 126th out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Exports
$54.6 billion (2020).  Soybean Meal ($7.89B), Corn ($6.46B), Soybean Oil ($3.9B), Soybeans ($2.31B), and Delivery Trucks ($2.3B), exporting mostly to Brazil ($7.67B), China ($5.41B), United States ($3.47B), Chile ($2.91B), and Vietnam ($2.87B).

Main local online stores
MercadoLibre, eBay and Amazon, Netshoes, Alibaba, Garbarino.com, Musimundo.com, Frávega, Apple and Cencosud

Economic freedom
‘Mostly not free’ (rated 50.1 out of 100). Ranked 27th out of 32 Latin American countries. Ranked 144th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 8th out of 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries, and 69th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language Spanish

Information channels
The Grupo Clarin and La Nacion conglomerates are the main players in the national media. The top free-to-air TV networks – Telefe, America, El Nueve and El Trece – are privately owned. Public broadcasting has a minor role. Clarin and La Nacion are the leading national newspapers. The government does not routinely block or filter online content, says Freedom House.

The press

Clarin – popular daily
La Nacion – respected conservative daily
Cronica – tabloid daily
La Prensa – Argentina’s oldest newspaper
Pagina 12 – left-wing daily

Television

Telefe – leading national network, operated by Grupo Telef
El Trece – leading national network, operated by Grupo Clarin
El Nueve – popular national network
America (Canal 2) – popular network
Todo Noticias – cable/satellite news channel owned by Grupo Clarin

Radio

Radio Mitre – talk radio, operated by Grupo Clarin
Radio Nacional – public
Radio America – private, news and entertainment
Radio Continental – private speech-based network
Los 40 Principales – private FM music network

News agency

Telam – state-run
Noticias Argentinas – set up by privately-owned newspapers
Infobae – news portal

Internet Data

Internet users
83% penetration, 38.02 million

Share of web traffic by device
56.69% mobile phones, 42.43% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.83% tablet devices and 0.05% other devices

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
21.09  Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
38.61 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 122.9%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 83.3%

Most popular web search engines
Google (97.88%), Bing (1.05%), Yahoo (0.85%), DuckduckGo (0.1%),  Ecosia (0.1%), Yandex Ru (0.01%)

Most used social media
Facebook (82.65%),  Instagram (6.8%), Pinterest (4.85%), Twitter (2.83%), YouTube (2.67%), Tumblr (0.13%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
75 yrs (2021)

Gender
In recent decades, women have gained access to many positions in the job market as well as in politics, economics, etc. However, some constraints keep women from advancing within a more predominant male job culture and helps explain the small numbers of women at the top level of many organizations.

Religion
Generally speaking, Argentina is a Catholic country, with the presence of some minorities, such as the Jewish community (2% of the population, concentrated in the area of Buenos Aires) and other minorities such as Muslims. Religion does not usually have any particular impact in the workplace.

Ethnicity
85% of the population in Argentina has European origin and 15% are of mixed origin. Sometimes, discrimination due to physical appearance does arise.