Revenues at the Dublin-based international headquarters for the operator of Facebook and Instagram last year surged by 22 per cent, or €15.54 billion, to €85.29 billion in a record performance for the business.
New accounts show that, on the back of the average weekly sales of €1.64 billion for 2024, pretax profits at the Irish arm of social media giant, Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd jumped by 57 per cent to €2.9 billion.
The revenues at the Dublin based unit account for 60 per cent of the US headquartered Meta’s global revenues of $164.5 billion (€142 billion) for 2024.
“Substantially all revenue is generated from advertising, which has continued to grow during the year,” the directors of the Irish business said.
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The increase in revenue “was attributable to growth in advertising revenue from third-party customers generated by displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and third-party mobile applications”.
The business recorded a profit after tax of €2.54 billion for 2024 after paying corporation tax of €366.8 million.
During the year, the company paid a dividend of €1.5 billion to parent company, Facebook International Operations Ltd. The directors disclose that, since year end, the board has approved further dividends of €1.9 billion to its parent.
Meta Ireland slashed one in five jobs during the year, having cut headcount by 18 per cent the previous year. The 433 reduction in staff numbers means the business employed 1,738 people last year, down from 2,171.
Staff costs of €453.9 million included €116.5 million in share-based payments. The accounts show that €257.15 million was paid out. That equates to an average salary of €147,959 before shared based payments of €116.5m and “other benefits” of €40.35 million are taken into account.
A breakdown of the roles show 570 people are employed in operations, 499 in administration, 369 in sales and marketing and 300 in engineering.
Pay to directors was €400,000 lower than in 2023 at €2.3 million, but €9.6 million was also paid out under long-term incentive schemes benefits.
At the start of 2024, the business had set aside €4.15 billion to deal with potential regulatory fines, of which €1 billion was released during the year to deal with fines.
Research and development (R&D) costs increased from €155.43 million to €186.3 million.
Net interest payments received of €43.25 million increased profits to a pretax profit of €2.9 billion.
The dividend payout, offset by the post-tax profits, saw accumulated profits rise to €2.59 billion from €891 million. Shareholder funds totalled €2.7 billion. Cash funds dipped from €5.89 billion to €5.14 billion.
