Research from Cornwall Insight’s ‘Domestic market share survey’ for the third quarter of 2020 reveals a shake-up of the energy retail landscape, following a spate of mergers and acquisitions. The impact of these acquisitions is shown in the below graph.
Findings from the Domestic market share survey:
- Octopus Energy enters the top six, holding 5.7% of the domestic market share – following acquisitions of Co-op Energy (August 2019) and ENGIE (January 2020) and recent organic growth.
- In the year to July 2020, EDF Energy has seen the highest net gain of the large suppliers, recording a 1.1pp increase in market share.
- E.ON UK and npower combined market share would reach 16.6%.
- After Ovo Energy’s acquisition of SSE in January 2020 its market share climbed to 14.5% becoming the second-largest supplier in the market.
Katie Hickford Analyst at Cornwall Insight said:
“Acquisitions and mergers have been the biggest form of supplier growth, with 10 instances of trade sale events in the domestic supply market since January 2019. Alongside this was also 10 exits through the supplier of last resort (SoLR) process.
“Of the gaining suppliers, the greatest level of activity was seen across the medium supplier group*, consolidating their position among the largest 17 suppliers by customer number. The medium supplier group took on nine acquisitions, with Octopus Energy the most active, growing its customer base by an estimated 375,000 customers.
“Octopus Energy has gained a collective 1.5% market share through its trade sale acquisitions. However, it is Octopus Energy’s recent organic customer growth that sees it become the sixth-largest supplier in the market.
“Some larger suppliers have also been active with EDF Energy and British Gas the most active in domestic supply acquisitions in 2020. Despite market share growth for some suppliers this quarter, it is currently a challenging environment for suppliers due to COVID-19, and some impacts have still yet to be seen.”
–Ends
Notes to Editors
* Medium supplier – a supplier with more than 250,000 energy accounts.
