News of April’s price cap saw a 50% year-on-year increase in activity on price comparison websites (PCWs) in March, the latest data from Electralink has revealed.
On 1 April soaring wholesale costs saw the cap increase by £693 to £1,971.
Electralink has APIs which provide consumption and meter data through several PCWs. The company said these showed that news of the cap increase pushed many customers to search for other tariffs.
In March, the APIs recorded 50% more calls and requests for data from PCWs compared to the same month last year.
As a result 174,000 switches were started in March 2022 which is 81% less than March last year but 22% more than February 2022.
Based on this figure and switches started in April at the time of writing, Electralink’s analysts forecast approximately 127,000 switches will complete this month.
Elsewhere Electralink revealed that ‘meter reading day’ on 31 March, a campaign by Martin Lewis urging people to submit a reading before the new cap came into force, resulted in 5.7 million domestic meter readings from both smart and traditional meters in the 48 hours of 31 March to 1 April.
This, it said, is double the number submitted on the same days last year.
Overall, 108,000 customers switched supplier in March this year which is 83% less than March 2021. However, the post-Christmas trend in growing switching rates meant 13% more switches completed last month than in February.
In terms of switching types, the highest proportion of switches occurred between large suppliers. Electralink said its analysis showed that switching between the former big six decreased while there was a rise in switching from large legacy to new large suppliers.
Of all switches:
- Large to large switches reached 62,000 – 12% more than February 2022 and 57% of the month’s total switches completed
- Large to other switches reached 22,000 – 20% more than February 2022 and 20% of March 2022’s total switches
- Other to large switches landed at 17,000 – 7% more than February 2022 and 16% of March 2022’s total switches completed
- And other to other switches hit 8,000 – 15% more than February 2022 and 7% of March’s total