More than 520,000 customers switched energy supplier in December 2019, figures published by ElectraLink show.
Data from the Energy Market Data Hub (EMDH) published today (14 January) reveals that a total of 526,000 customers changed electricity supplier in Great Britain, a 21 per cent increase on December 2018.
This brings the total number of switches completed during 2019 to a record 6.3 million, a 9.3 per cent increase on the previous year.
The data revealed that big six to challenger switching prevailed as the switch type with the most changes of supplier (CoS) completed, with 170,000 customers (32 per cent) moving onto newer brands.
Yet many customers continue to switch back from the challengers, which ElectraLink suggests may be down to suppliers exiting the market.
A total of 17 challenger suppliers have ceased trading since the start of 2018.
December saw the second highest number of switches from challenger brands to the largest six suppliers with 93,000 switches completed; 7 per cent under October 2019’s record of 100,000.
This, ElectraLink says, follows a trend of noteworthy improvement for the big six after a record net loss of customers in April 2019 – 251,000 compared to December’s net loss of 77,000.
Responding to the figures Paul Linnane, head of energy market insights at ElectraLink, said:“Changes of supplier incidents increased over 9 per cent in 2019 compared to the year before.
“We believe this is due to a continued trend in public awareness of the benefits of switching, as well as the ease at which switching can take place through service providers such as autoswitchers and price comparison websites.”
Furthermore, of all switches in December 153,000 (29 per cent) were between the larger players.
Meanwhile 109,000 (21 per cent) were between challenger suppliers.
Linnane added: “Additionally, our data on switching types shows that challenger brands are attracting high numbers of customers from the big six. This leads us to speculate that the proliferation of new challenger suppliers has led to more competitive prices for customers to take advantage of, thereby increasing the number of customers who switch to a better deal with another supplier.
“Interestingly, our data also shows that the number of customers switching for the first time has remained consistent over the past four years. Since switching rates have increased in that time, it is clear that customers who benefit financially from switching suppliers will continue to do so, driving the observed growth.”
Overview of switching in 2019
The record 6.3 million switches occurred among 5.8 million meter point administration numbers (MPAN) meaning 20 per cent of all MPANs switched supplier at least once in 2019.
More than 97 per cent of MPANs switched only once and 488,000 MPANs switched more than once in the year. The record for the most switches for a single MPAN is 16 and another 12 MPANs switched 10 or more times in the year.
The month with the most switches was April with 670,000 CoS completed – the most ever in a single month.
December 2019’s switching activity broke the trend of the previous two years as CoS events increased from November to December rather than decreased as they had done in 2017 and 2018.