Switching data from the Energy Market Data Hub (EMDH) published today has confirmed a 12.4 percent increase in energy changes of supplier (CoS) last month compared to February 2019. Almost 513,000 switches completed occurred, well above the 456,000 in February last year.
Last month’s supplier switches completed also bounced back after a typically low January, increasing 12.2 percent from 457,000 events.
Once again, CoS is up year-on-year as February 2020 is also higher than February 2017 and 2018.
Switches started also increased with 644,000 last month compared to February 2019’s 578,000.
All CoS types from February’s activity increased from January 2020’s, except for Big Six to Big Six. Challenger brands continue to attract plenty of customers from the Big Six, and supplier switches between challenger brands outpaced CoS between the Big Six for the first time since March 2019.
- Big Six to challenger switches reached 181,000 – 2% more than February 2019 and 35.4% of February 2020’s total switches completed,
- Big Six to Big Six switches hit 115,000 – 16.6% more than February 2019 and 22.5% of February 2020’s total switches completed,
- Challenger to Big Six switches landed at 81,000 – 38.2% more than February 2019 and 15.8% of February 2020’s total switches completed, and
- Challenger to challenger switches hit 135,000 – 11.6% more than February 2019 and 26.2% of February 2020’s total switches completed.
For more information on changes of supplier figures, contact Ian Scougal at [email protected] or Paul Linnane at [email protected]
This month’s hot topic…
Our insights currently view SSE’s former domestic retail customers as belonging to a separate supplier to Ovo’s domestic customers. SSE’s domestic customers are still counted as Big Six, whereas Ovo remains in in the ‘Challenger’ or ‘Large Independent’ category. This is because SSE is still being run as a separate brand, as far as the market is aware. We welcome your comments on the disruption of the traditional Big Six as well as the rise of extra-large independent challengers such as Ovo and Octopus. Get in touch on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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NOTES:
The above figures relate to electricity switching in Great Britain only.
We do not include CoS from Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) processes or trade sales in our monthly CoS reporting. We account for only voluntary switches, or instances where the customer made an active decision and took action to change supplier.
Switches started refers to the number of valid switches started, also known as switches raised.
All data is provided by ElectraLink’s Energy Market Insights (EMI) from the EMDH.
ElectraLink has been granted the governance protections to hold, transfer and analyse CoS and other data.