The main power utility PPC’s retail electricity market share is continuing to slide but at a slower-than-needed rate to meet bailout contraction targets.

Latest market data, not yet official, showed that PPC’s market share fell to 82 percent at the end of April from 82.8 percent a month earlier, energypress sources have informed.

PPC’s market share had fallen to 84.08 percent at the end of February, from 84.9 percent in January and 85.4 percent in December.

According to the bailout’s contraction targets, PPC’s market share needs to drop to 62.24 percent by the end of this year and fall to less than 50 percent by the end of 2019. The country’s lenders appear to have accepted the fact that PPC will fail to reach these targets.

Most pundits have attributed the still-dominant PPC’s slow market share contraction rate to a 15 percent electricity bill discount offered by the power utility’s to punctual customers as of July, 2016. Though this discount has led to financial losses for the utility, as highlighted in recent results, it has managed to restrict the growth rates of independent electricity suppliers.