Pre-tax profits at the Tuam firm at the cutting edge of driverless car technology almost doubled to €46.25m in 2022.
According to accounts filed by Connaught Electronics Ltd trading as Valeo Vision Systems, the company recorded the sharp increase in pre-tax profits as revenues increased marginally from €198.18m to €200.05m.
The pre-tax profits of €46.25m in 2022 follow pre-tax profits of €25.4m in 2021.
The French-owned company is one of the largest private sector employers in the manufacturing sector in the west of Ireland and numbers in 2022 increased from 795 to 869.
The company's website shows that numbers employed have since grown to 928.
Valeo Tuam is a group centre of excellence for vision systems and automated parking, producing physical hardware and generating software intellectual property with artificial intelligence.
The directors said that its products and systems "contribute to intuitive driving".
Products developed by the R&D centre in Tuam are in production at Valeo sites in Germany, Hungary, Mexico and China.
Originally established in 1982 as Connaught Electronics Ltd (CEL), a manufacturer of automotive security products, the site diversified into camera systems and was acquired by Valeo in 2007.
The directors said that they "are satisfied with the trading performance of the company for the year".
The company recorded an operating profit of €39.34m and profits were boosted by dividends received of €6.9m.
Just over 50% of the workforce at the end of 2022 at 440 were engaged in R&D and in 2022 the firm's R&D spend totalled €97.86m and this was a sharp increase on the R&D spend of €62.75m.
At the end of December 2022, a note attached to the accounts stating that the company had committed to spend €79.55m on R&D in 2023.
Directors’ pay reduced sharply from €446,659 to €287,708 made up of remuneration of €269,205 and pension contributions of €18,503
The directors state that the company plans to continue to invest heavily in R&D.
The profit for 2022 takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €6.36m.
The company recorded post tax profits of €45.73 after incurring a €512,409 corporation tax charge.
At the end of December 2022, shareholder funds stood at €107.2m that included €72.04m in accumulated profits.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
