Switching site Moneysupermarket saw no revenue from energy switching in the last quarter of 2021 because high wholesale energy prices meant there were no switchable energy tariffs available from October.
The company said it was assuming that energy revenue would continue at zero in 2022, because “Wholesale energy prices remain too high to return attractive switching tariffs to the market, despite the increase in the energy price cap.”
In its report for the year to 31 December 2021 the company said the lack of switchable energy tariffs cut revenues at the company’s home services segment, which also includes broadband, in the last quarter of 2021 to £8.8 million, down 64%. Over the year, the sector revenue was down 34% to £68.1 million. The company said the “collapse of energy switching” had affected the second half of the year. Contribution from the segment was also affected by “bad debt costs associated with the administration of several energy partners” who would normally have paid the site a fee for each customer who switched.
Despite the lack of switchable tariffs on offer, the company said energy enquiry volumes remained high, even throughout Q4. It said, “We remain confident that the energy switching market will return strongly in the medium term.” It said, “We want to retain users and help them switch more of their household bills,” noting that there was “strong commercial benefits to the Group from incremental switches from existing users” with cross selling a “major opportunity”.
Despite the lack of switching in late 2021, in December it launched an energy ‘super-switch’ service that stores relevant customer details to make subsequent switching even easier, which it said learned from its ‘Pick Me A Tariff Every Year’ scheme.