+++ August 1999 – In Germany, the following has happened since: Electricity is yellow +++ January 2000 – Yello welcomes the 200,000th customer +++ August 2000 – 350,000 customers feel happy with Yello +++ November 2000 – World-renowned soccer star Franz Beckenbauer gives a testimonial on the Yello TV commercial +++ December 2000 – Yello has 600,000 customers by the end of the year +++ December 2002 - Yello even makes telephoning inexpensive – Yello Strom has one million customers, placing it among the top 10 German electricity companies +++ April 2006 – Yello is a national supplier of the FIFA World Cup in Germany 2006 +++ April 2007 – Save electricity easily: Yello presents the Sparzähler online +++ September 2007 - Yello starts yellow electricity in Sweden +++ October 2007 - Yello enters the German gas market with a unique combined product: Low-priced gas with the gas Sparzähler online +++ March 2008 – Yello and Microsoft enter a strategic partnership at the CeBIT trade fair +++ December 2008 – Yello makes its Sparzähler online available nationwide +++ February 2009 – Gold for the Sparzähler: Yello's intelligent electricity meter receives the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany 2009 +++ September 2009 – Yello and Cisco start pilot project for smart grids +++ September 2009 – Stiftung Warentest (renowned German product testing institution): Yello Strom has the best rate conditions +++ October 2009 – Google and Yello work together: Yello Sparzähler online customers can also view their consumption on iGoogle.
In August 1999, Yello Strom GmbH started in Germany. Germany as a whole was astonished by the message: “I think that electricity is yellow.” The very first commercials explained to consumers in Germany that, thanks to deregulation, switching electricity providers was finally possible and that people could also save money by switching. Yello is Germany's first national electricity brand for private and commercial customers. Yello Strom is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, Germany’s third-largest energy company. Yello has a brand awareness of 97% (based on source: GfK market research institute) and, with ca. 1.3 million customers, is one of the ten largest electricity companies in the German market today.
Yello supplies permanently inexpensive electricity combined with top service. Yello is the company in Germany that is looking forward in terms of competition. Yello has done more for competition than any other electricity company. With the Yello Strom brand, consumers combine inexpensiveness with a simple change of supplier. Yello has been driving the competition in the deregulated energy market since 1999. Now, Yello will also introduce competition to the previously monopolised metering market, offering the Yello Sparzähler online starting in 2008. With these smart meters, consumers can easily detect electricity guzzlers in their own homes, reduce their electricity consumption over the long-term and thus save money. In order to press ahead with further technological development of the Sparzähler, Yello and Microsoft Deutschland entered a strategic partnership at the CeBIT computer trade fair in March 2008 with the objective of designing the entire software architecture based on Microsoft technologies. Yello entered the gas business in October 2007. With its unique combination product, Yello provides consumers with a completely new option: inexpensive gas in combination with innovative meter technology. The pilot areas are Essen and Nuremberg.
So Yello was and is the driving force behind more competition – workable competition – in energy market deregulation.
Since the introduction of major electricity provider comparisons, Yello has again and again been the winner in terms of service, customer orientation and customer satisfaction. During the first major comparison in 2005, the 100 most important electricity companies in Germany were examined according to these criteria: Prices, service, customer position. Result: Yello ranked 1st (Focus, issue 13, March 2005). In 2006, Yello won again (Focus Money, no. 22 May 2006). Yello also consistently achieved best marks in the third, fourth and fifth electricity provider comparison in the categories "contract conditions and services" (Focus Money, issue 30, July 2007, Focus Money, issue 34, August 2008, Focus Money, issue 4, January 2010). The result: Yello was again the test winner. In these comparisons, energy market experts judged the companies. But in national consumer surveys too, Yello is way ahead of the other competitors. For example, a long-term study conducted by the market research institute “Kundenmonitor Deutschland” in 2006 found: Yello has the most satisfied customers in the German electricity market. Kundenmonitor's long-term study ranked Yello number one also in 2007 and 2008. Yello was once again among the best of the study in 2009 (see www.kundenmonitor.de). Yello received the highest rating, "sehr gut" [very good], from the renowned German product testing institution Stiftung Warentest for 2009 (test, 10/2009). Yello was the champion in the conventional electricity rates category and performed remarkably as the only provider of the sixteen assessed in the electricity rate test to be graded "sehr gut" [very good] (1.2).