their prices have never been lower, here’s why

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The drop in the prices of telephone plans was illustrated again recently during Black Friday: among French operators, fixed and mobile offers have been selling at historically low prices for several months, thanks to the maturity of the market.

THE offers are multiplying onlinewhere mobile plans seem to have an ever lower price and an ever higher amount of data.

The average price

According to the monthly barometer carried out by the online price comparator Ariase, the average price of a mobile plan including 10 GB was thus established at 10.68 euros, down 38% over one year. The prices of fixed and internet subscriptions also fell by almost 13% over one year, to 28.51 euros per month.

“Overall, prices in Europe are still very low compared to prices in other regions of the world, particularly compared to the United States. And within Europe, the France is particularly low on landlines like on mobile,” specifies Romain Bonenfant, general director of the French Telecoms Federation (FFT).

The four French operators – Orange, Bouygues Telecom, SFR and Free, supported for the first three by their low-cost brands Sosh, B&You and Red by SFR – are aligning regularly on prices which they lower in turn.

A price war

“Clearly, we are in a rather intense phase (of price war), especially since the summer,” observes Sylvain Chevallier, telecoms specialist and partner at the consulting firm Bearing Point.

A situation linked to a increased competition in the market since the arrival of Free in 2012, seven years after the conviction of SFR, Orange and Bouygues Telecom for illegal agreement. But the price drop at speed big V since the start of the year is mainly due to a market which is experiencing a definite slowdown.

According to the latest quarterly report published at the beginning of October by the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (Arcep), the number of mobile subscriptions increased from 75.5 million to 76.5 million in one year. As for fixed subscriptions, their number increased by 1%.

A “ridiculous” increase compared to previous years, comments Sylvain Chevallier. According to Arcep, this slowdown in the growth of mobile plans has been observed since the fourth quarter of 2022.

“Fixed costs”

“In a market that is no longer growing,the only way for operators to achieve growthis to seek subscribers from the competition,” continues the Bearing Point analyst. And therefore to lower prices. A dynamic facilitated by the sector.

“It’s a saving in fixed costs, telecoms,” explains Romain Bonenfant. Once you have installed a network, having more or fewer clients does not bring not much cost additional. »

As for customers, they are also increasingly free to move from one operator to another. According to the Arcep report, “the proportion of commitment-free packages (…) continues to increase”, reaching 79% have second trimester 2024or three more points in one year.

But this race to the bottom does not have the same implications for operators. If three of the four operators recorded an increase in their mobile subscribers in the third quarter, SFR saw their number decline again.

With AFP.

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