The rise of the telephone bill triggers the flight of customers to record levels: 15 changes every minute

The increase in the price of telephone services has triggered record movements of clients between companies in search of better offers. Only during the month of January a total of 687,974 port-abilities were recorded in the country as a whole , a record never before seen equivalent to a rate of 15 movements per minute.

The greater use of the figure of portability -movement protected by the regulation that allows the change of company without losing the telephone number- is mainly linked to two factors: the progressive increase in the cost of the service and, secondly, the campaign de Reyes and the start of the year with which companies try to boost their customer base by tightening their margins.

More than half of telephone users say that the price remains the main complaint when choosing an offer. Movistar, Vodafone and Orange have increased in recent years their rates including some improvements linked to the speed of connection, the ability to navigate or the introduction of new audiovisual services such as football.

Only in the case of packaged services that include fixed telephony, mobile telephony and television - the premium product on which the sector's major players are turning their strategy - the increase in services has been 4.9% in the last year, according to reflects the new price table offered by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). In terms of mobile telephony only, inflation since the beginning of 2017 was 0.4%.

Behind most of the portabilities is MásMóvil, the only group that has so far opted not to raise its rates. The company, which in 2016 closed the purchase of Yoigo, has increased its number of customers in mobile lines by 19.5% in the last year to reach 5.09 million, according to statistics produced by the National Commission of Markets and of the Competition (CNMC).

The fourth operator of the market captured 835,000 new lines in just 12 months, taking advantage of the flight of customers in two competitors such as Orange and Vodafone. Taking into account that the market continues to grow at a rate of 957,000 lines per year - there are already 112 telephones per 100 inhabitants - the yellow group would have captured around 87% of the new capacity during 2017.