Market Research Companies in Ecuador

Key figures for researchers

Population

16,938,986 (2022 census)¹

Largest provinces

Guayas 25.9%, Pichincha 18.2%, Manabí 9.4% of the population (2022 census)¹

Urban / rural

63.1% urban, 36.9% rural (2022 census)¹

Children / median age

25.5% children / 29 years (2022 census)¹

Households

3.2 people on average; 16.7% are one-person households (2022 census)¹

Self-identification

77.4% mestizo, 7.7% indigenous, 7.7% montubio, 4.9% Afro-Ecuadorian (2022 census)²

People using the internet

80.1%; 71.3% of homes have internet access (July 2025)⁴

Smartphone owners

59.3% of people (July 2025)⁴

Mobile subscriptions

101.6 per 100 people (2024)⁶

GDP per capita

about US$7,125 (2025)⁷

School year 2026-2027 (Sierra-Amazonía)

from 1–3 September 2026 to 25 June 2027¹³

Data protection fines (private sector)

0.1% to 0.7% of turnover (minor), 0.7% to 1% (serious)²³

Research guide

Research landscape

Ecuador is a mid-sized research market with two main business centres: Guayaquil, the largest city and port, and Quito, the capital, followed by Cuenca and Santo Domingo. Local agencies typically offer consumer, social and opinion research, fieldwork and online studies, and Ecuador is often covered in Andean or Latin American multi-country projects.

For socio-economic quotas, many studies refer to the INEC socio-economic stratification (strata A, B, C+, C-, D), published in December 2011. Based on 9,744 dwellings in urban Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, Machala and Ambato, it scores housing, education, economic activity, goods, ICT use and consumption habits: 1.9% of households were in stratum A, 11.2% in B, 22.8% in C+, 49.3% in C- and 14.9% in D. It is old and only urban, so ask your agency which classification it uses.

Languages and fieldwork

Under Article 2 of the Constitution, Spanish is the official language of Ecuador, and Spanish, Kichwa and Shuar are official languages of intercultural relations. Spanish is the fieldwork language for almost all studies: the 2022 census results reported 16.4 million Spanish speakers and about 1.1 million people using indigenous, foreign or sign languages. In the 2022 census, 77.4% of people identified as mestizo, 7.7% as indigenous, 7.7% as montubio and 4.9% as Afro-Ecuadorian; in indigenous communities, interviewers who speak Kichwa may be needed.

Guayas (25.9% of the population), Pichincha (18.2%) and Manabí (9.4%) together hold 53.5% of residents. A national sample should cover both the coast and the Andean highlands, which have different consumer habits, and decide whether to include the Amazon provinces and Galápagos. With 36.9% of the population in rural areas, a sample of Guayaquil and Quito only is not national.

Which methods work

Internet use has grown fast: in July 2025, 80.1% of people used the internet and 71.3% of homes had internet access, but only 61.9% of people had an activated mobile phone and 59.3% a smartphone. The World Bank / ITU count 77.2 internet users and 101.6 mobile subscriptions per 100 people in 2024. Online and mobile surveys work for urban, younger and better-off targets; questionnaires must work well on a phone.

For the general population, and especially rural, older and lower-income targets, face-to-face interviews (household, intercept or central location) and telephone interviews remain necessary. Households are getting smaller (3.2 people on average, 16.7% living alone), so agree how the respondent is selected within the household. Focus groups and in-depth interviews are mostly held in Guayaquil and Quito, with Cuenca for a third region.

Timing

National holidays follow the official calendar published by the Viceministerio de Turismo, and several are moved to a Friday or Monday to create long weekends, when many people travel and business respondents are hard to reach. For the rest of 2026: Día de los Difuntos (Monday 2 November) and the Independence of Cuenca (Tuesday 3 November) make a long weekend from 31 October to 3 November; work is suspended in the public and private sectors on Friday 20 November (Executive Decree 507); Christmas falls on Friday 25 December, and Quito has a local holiday for its foundation on 7 December.

In 2027: New Year’s Day (Friday 1 January), Carnival (Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 February), Good Friday (26 March), Labour Day (moved to Friday 30 April), Battle of Pichincha (Monday 24 May), 10 August (moved to Monday 9 August), Independence of Guayaquil (moved to Friday 8 October), Día de los Difuntos (moved to Monday 1 November), Independence of Cuenca (3 November, also moved: check the final rest day) and Christmas (Saturday 25 December).

The two school regions have different calendars. In Sierra-Amazonía, the 2026-2027 school year started on 1–3 September 2026 and classes end on 25 June 2027. In Costa-Galápagos, classes started from 4 May 2026, with a break from 26 December 2026 to 3 January 2027; the last term ends on 24 February 2027 and the school year closes on 11 March 2027. Studies with parents, children or teenagers should take both calendars into account.

According to INAMHI, the dry season on the coast generally runs from June to November, while the Sierra has two rainy periods, from March to May and from October to November. Allow extra time for rural and Amazon fieldwork when roads are affected by rain.

Data protection

Personal data is governed by the Organic Law on Personal Data Protection (LOPDP), published in the Registro Oficial (fifth supplement No. 459) on 26 May 2021, and by its General Regulation, issued by Executive Decree 904 of 6 November 2023 and published on 13 November 2023. The sanctions regime has been fully in force since 26 May 2023.

The supervisory authority is the Superintendencia de Protección de Datos Personales (SPDP). Its first head was designated on 28 March 2024 and took office on 23 April 2024, and its first resolution, setting up its provisional structure, was published in the Registro Oficial on 19 August 2024. Private-sector fines range from 0.1% to 0.7% of turnover for minor infringements and from 0.7% to 1% for serious ones; public bodies face 1 to 10, or 10 to 20, basic unified salaries. In December 2025 the SPDP issued its first fines for serious infringements: US$259,644.01 for LIGAPRO and US$194,856.16 for the Ecuadorian Football Federation, over personal data collected through fan apps.

Consent must be free, specific, informed and unambiguous, and can be withdrawn at any time. Sensitive data includes ethnicity, gender identity, cultural identity, religion, ideology, political affiliation, judicial record, migration status, sexual orientation, health, biometric and genetic data: processing it is prohibited unless an exception applies, such as the person’s explicit consent. Surveys asking about ethnic self-identification, health or politics should therefore collect explicit consent.

Transfers abroad are allowed to countries declared adequate by the authority, or with adequate guarantees in a binding legal instrument or binding corporate rules; otherwise the authority’s authorisation is needed, except in listed cases such as explicit consent. The Regulation also requires controllers or processors outside Ecuador that process residents’ data to appoint a special attorney resident in Ecuador, with exceptions such as occasional processing. If you receive identifiable data, recordings or video, agree in writing with your agency who is responsible for the data, how it is secured and how it is transferred outside Ecuador.

Working with a local agency

• Share a clear brief: objectives, target, sample size, provinces and cities, urban/rural split, method and deadline.
• Agree on quotas by region (coast, highlands, Amazon), area, age, gender and socio-economic level, and on the classification used.
• Ask who does the fieldwork: own interviewers or subcontractors, in which provinces, and whether they can interview in Kichwa if needed.
• Ask about quality control: back-checks, GPS or audio checks for face-to-face interviews, and fraud checks for online samples.
• Compare several proposals: you can send one request to up to 5 companies from this page.