Customers are flying away. But what is happening with the operator?
The telecom operator SFR is going through a tumultuous period. At the heart of the storm, we find Altice, the owner of SFR, entangled in Portugal in a corruption scandal which is shaking the very foundations of the group led by business magnate Patrick Drahi. This difficult context weighed heavily on the operator’s performance, which saw its customer base and financial indicators erode in a worrying manner.
The most significant setback for SFR is measured at the level of its customers. In 2023, while the French telecom landscape sees certain players like Orange, Bouygues Telecom, and especially Free, expanding their subscriber base, SFR appears to be the weak link with an alarming erosion of its customer base. In the mobile segment, the operator saw its number of subscribers fall by 315,000, bringing it to 20.45 million as of December 31, 2023. The situation is not much better on landlines, where SFR lost 158,000 customers, its base eroding to 6.39 million subscribers.
It must be said that SFR has done little to give confidence to its customers. Those who had subscribed to “guaranteed prices for life” saw their packages increase considerably, sometimes up to 50%. Those who tried to complain were met with a cold shoulder by the operator’s customer service, who encouraged them to cancel in the tone of “if you don’t like it, go elsewhere”. We have to believe that the customers took the instructions literally…
Faced with this hemorrhage, SFR is trying to regain the initiative by simplifying its fixed offer, promising more clarity and performance in its services. Eric Pradeau, executive director of the general public at SFR, displays a desire for renewal, with offers revised to be among the best on the market. It remains to be seen whether these measures will be sufficient to reverse the negative trend and restore confidence to a visibly lost customer base. The big sale seems to have started since the operator is offering a 130G package with 5G included for less than 11 euros per month. It remains to be seen whether this price will really be guaranteed…
The publication of the financial results for the year 2023 highlighted the extent of the difficulties encountered by Altice. Its turnover is down 1.3% to 11.16 billion euros and the warning signs are undeniably red. In an attempt to turn things around, Altice France has decided to sell its media branch (BFM-TV). But this financial maneuver struggles to reassure, faced with a colossal debt exceeding 24 billion euros.