DUBLIN: Facebook Ireland has recorded a huge increase in revenue through its Irish base, with revenue rising from €7.9bn to €12.6bn last year.
The company has filed accounts here showing that its profit before tax in Ireland has risen from €109.6m to €174.3m, a 59pc increase.
As a result, the web giant paid tax here of €30.4m last year, a rise from €14.1m paid in 2015.
Like other multinational firms, Facebook organises its revenue reporting in a way to minimise its international tax bills. Alongside Apple, Google and others, the company is regularly criticised for minimising its tax payments.
The European Commission may soon propose new rules around tax consolidation across the EU following support for such a measure from the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Facebook has seen significant increases in the number of people using its services. Facebook now has 2.1bn global users, with most checking the service daily.
Instagram, which it also owns, has 800m global users while its WhatsApp messaging app has 1.2bn global users.
In Ireland, recent research from Ipsos MRBI indicates that Facebook has 2.4m users, while Instagram has 1m users and WhatsApp has 2.1m users.
Marketing research estimates that Facebook captures around a fifth of global digital advertising revenue. Between them, Google and Facebook have over half the world’s digital advertising revenue, which is the fastest-growing sector in the advertising industry.
“As the home of our international headquarters, Ireland is an important part of Facebook’s story and our growth in 2016 demonstrated that,” said Gareth Lambe, head of Facebook Ireland.
