Mobile plans have not escaped inflation. At the end of 2022, the average monthly price of a subscription rose to 19.17 euros, an increase of 20% in one year, according to the barometer of the Ariase site. Telecom operators will always be sorry for the low prices compared to those charged in other major European countries or in the United States, which are two to three times more expensive.
But this rise is significant after an almost incessant price war since Free Mobile entered the French market in 2012. And “this upward trend is expected to continue throughout 2023”warned Malo Corbin, the financial director of Altice (SFR, BFM, RMC), during the presentation, on May 23, of the quarterly results of the operator of Patrick Drahi.
Also visible in the landline (optical fiber and ADSL), this rise in prices, even a few euros per month, is not without consequences on the portfolio of families where we often accumulate four or five monthly subscriptions. As a direct consequence, the mobile market took a serious hit at the start of the year. In the first trimester, according toobservatory of mobile services published by the telecoms regulatorArcep, May 11, “the number of SIM cards has decreased for the first time in two and a half years” : as of March 31, France had 82.5 million cards, 160,000 less than at the end of 2022.
“This contraction is explained by the slowdown in the dynamics of the post-paid market [forfaits] General public. [En métropole]the number of gross sales fell by 13% in one year, whereas these had until then remained at a high level since the rebound in economic activity in 2021”underlines the gendarme of the telecoms, without mentioning the link between the rise in the price of the fixed prices and the fall of the park of subscribers.
Virtual mobile operators are regaining ground
With these price increases, especially on entry-level or mid-range subscriptions, it is “more difficult to attract new customers”, agreed Malo Corbin. SFR lost 100,000 mobile customers in the first quarter. Its competitors are doing better, with customer conquest still positive, but the pace has slowed considerably.
Orange only gained 40,000 new mobile subscribers in the first quarter, four to five times less than its average rate for 2022. Bouygues Telecom only gained 14,000 additional customers in three months, when it was around 100 000 per quarter since the beginning of 2021. Free Mobile, which undertook in January 2022 not to increase its prices for five years, escaped this cold snap. Xavier Niel’s operator (individual shareholder of the World) gained 172,000 mobile customers in the first quarter of 2023, its third best score since the start of 2021.
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