Pre-tax profits at online giant Amazon's main Irish arm last year more than doubled to €67.2m.
New accounts show that Amazon Data Services Ireland Ltd (ADSIL) recorded the jump in pre-tax profits as revenues increased more than €1 billion or 42% from $2.59 billion to $3.68 billion.
Pre-tax profits increased by 135% or €38.7m from €28.5m to €67.2m.
The main activity of the company is the operation of data centres and at the end of last year employed 1,432.
An Amazon commissioned report has estimated that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has made a capital spend of €2 billion on its network of data centres here over the past decade.
The directors for ADSIL state that during the year, administrative expenses increased in line with expectations due to an increase in data centre operational expenses, partially offset by reduced headcount costs owing to the 2020 research and development activity transfer to another group undertaking.
ADSIL ceased Research and Development activity on October 1st 2020 as this was transferred to a connected firm.
The company last year recorded a post tax profit of €51.48m after paying corporation tax of €15.7m.
The profit at ADSIL last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.082 billion.
The average number of people employed by the business last year declined from 1,747 to 1,313.
Staff costs at the company last year declined by 35.5% from €214.57m to €138.4m. Wages and salaries reduced from €158.93m to €104.16m and share based payments declined sharply from €31.7m to €19.44m.
The company received a capital contribution of €900m last year from Amazon EU Sarl and this followed a capital contribution of €430m in the prior year.
The capital contributions have greatly strengthened ADSIL’s balance sheet with shareholder funds last year increasing by €971m from €1.447 billion to €2.418 billion.
The firm’s accumulated profits totaled €223.85m.
Directors’ pay last year totaled €501,000, made up of €206,000 in pay, €285,000 in share based awards and €10,000 in pension payments.
Separate accounts filed by another Amazon Irish unit, Amazon Ireland Support Services Ltd (AISSL) show that pre-tax losses at the company last year increased by 62% from €4.7m to €7.6m.
The increase in pre-tax losses came in spite of revenues increasing by €28.6m from €194.5m to €223.16m.
The main activity of the Cork based firm is providing customer service, logistics and other support services.
Numbers employed at the end of December last totaled 1,811.
The firm's staff costs last year increased from €77.6m to €96.26m. Directors’ pay totaled €591,000.
The company’s shareholder funds at the end of last December totaled €615.66m.
