Facebook Ireland’s annual revenue increased by over a third to €25.5bn last year.
This represents a €6.8bn rise on the Irish subsidiary’s 2017 revenue figures.
The social media giant’s Irish office recorded a profit before tax of €361.3m, up €109.5m from 2017.
The company says that it paid €63.2m in tax here in 2018, up from €38.3m in 2017, representing a tax rate of 17.5pc.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Facebook records sales revenue from around Europe in its Irish office.
Facebook, together with Google, has become the world’s biggest advertisement company across its platforms which include Instagram and WhatsApp.
The figures come after the company recently announced that its Facebook user base has increased to 1.6bn daily users while all its platforms combined had 2.2bn daily users around the world.
In the third quarter of 2019, advertising revenue was up 28pc to $17.4bn (€15.8bn) for the company’s worldwide operations, with mobile advertising revenue making up the majority of this.
Average revenue per user (Arpu) now stands at $34.55 (€31.38), up substantially on the $27.61 reported for the third quarter last year.
“As the home of our international headquarters, Ireland is important to Facebook,” said Gareth Lambe, head of Facebook Ireland. “Since establishing here ten years ago, we have expanded to a campus site in Dublin and opened an office in Cork and a data centre in Meath, all of which are powered by 100pc clean and renewable wind energy.
“In 2018 alone, Facebook contributed almost €1 billion directly to the Irish economy in capital investment, suppliers and employee expenses.”
Facebook is closing in on 5,000 employees in Ireland, with a new headquarters being built in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
But the company remains a target for a growing number of politicians, media groups and social commentators, who accuse it of having scant regard for users’ privacy.
It has also become a hot topic in upcoming US and UK elections, with calls to limit or ban politically-targeted advertising on the main Facebook platform. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has said the platform will allow political ads, even where they contain falsehoods, on the premise of free speech.
Although negative media coverage has not hampered usage figures or profitability, senior executives say that it is being acknowledged.
“We are not deaf to the feedback,” David Baser, a senior product director at Facebook, recently told the Irish Independent on the question of how the company is received.
“We do hear it. And yet will also continue to stay focused on building products people find useful. As long as we do that, we hope we continue to grow.”
Source: Read Full Article