Bulb Aiming For 100M Customers & Octopus Acquires 70k Customers

Hayden Wood Bulb’s CEO and co-founder revealed that the energy supplier now has 1.6 million customers, a huge jump from the 326,000 just two years ago. However, the companies’ ambition doesn’t end there; they want 100 million customers worldwide by 2030.

Despite these big ambitions Bulb has yet to make a profit with a new report showing that its losses expanded faster in the last financial year at £129 million. Gross profit per customer averaged £60 in the four years since Bulb was founded but in the last financial year that figure was £12.

Revenue meanwhile increased 350% thanks to the rapid growth of its customer base which grew by 800,000. The company’s net losses, however, cancelled out the revenue as it too shot up by 350%.

“I will say that our goal is to supply 100 million homes around the world with affordable renewable energy, so we really are just at the beginning. We deliberately chose to delay some price increases to customers as we took the hit as wholesale energy prices spiked during the Beast from the East. The company will need to expand to more than the four countries that we’re in now to get to 100 million,” said Hayden Wood, Bulb’s co-founder and CEO.

To hit the target of 100 million households Bulb will have to expand overseas. Bulb already has a presence in France, Spain and Texas but to get the numbers they’re aiming for they’ll have to expand at close to 50% per year over the next decade.

Such rapid growth often creates problems for companies, and it will be interesting to see how Bulb handles them and whether customer services which it has been hailed for recently is negatively impacted.

The quickly growing Octopus Energy has gained 70,000 new UK household customers after it made a deal with French energy firm Engie who has decided to pull out of the UK’s domestic market.

Octopus currently has 1.4 million customers (5% of the UK energy market) has made several acquisitions over the past two years with the Engie deal being the sixth such deal. It’s likely to gain even more customers over the coming months after it announced a price cut.

“Octopus Energy is investing to drive the green energy revolution – our technology enables a lower cost transition and our rapid growth means we can bring the benefits of cheaper, greener, smarter energy to ever more customers. It is an honour to acquire Engie’s UK home energy supply operations, enabling Engie to focus on their expanding services in other sectors whilst we bring their customers Octopus’s renowned service, pricing and technology,” said the company’s CEO Greg Jackson.

Octopus also announced that it would be working with London mayor Sadiq Kahn to supply power to non-profit London Power, a new energy company set up to provide cheaper power to Londoners potentially saving them £300 on bills.

Octopus looks set to spread further internationally after partnering with the Hanwha group in Australia and its acquisition of German digital energy supplier 4hundred.

Bulb vs Octopus - Which Energy Supplier is Best?

When it comes to fixed tariffs, there is little difference between Octopus vs Bulb. Both suppliers offer the same rates for their cheapest fixed tariffs, however, with Bulb, you can save up to almost £90 a year with their flexible tariffs. Octopus does offer innovative tariffs that often don't appear on energy price comparison websites, even though sometimes they might be the cheapest available option.

Both energy suppliers deliver 100% green electricity, but when it comes to gas, Octopus doesn't use any. Nonetheless, 10% of Bulb's gas is green, meaning that it comes from the natural breakdown of organic matter like plant material and sewage.

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