Revenue surges at Amazon’s data centre business in Ireland

Revenues at Amazon’s data centre business here surged €1.17 billion to €4.85 billion last year.

New accounts show that in spite of Amazon Data Services Ireland Ltd’s revenues increasing by 32 per cent, the company recorded an eight per cent drop in pretax profit to €61.5 million.

The firm runs several data hub facilities here and employed 1,753 at the end of 2022.

The company’s operating profits declined 47 per cent from €62.3 million to €33.14 million which followed operating expenses rising by a third to €4.82 billion last year.

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The directors state that the company’s increase in administrative expenses was “primarily due to an increase in data centre operational expenses”.

The data centre expenses increased against the background of soaring energy prices in the first three quarters of 2022.

The profit for last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.02 billion.

The average numbers employed increased by 321 from 1,313 to 1,634 as staff costs increased by 35.5 per cent to €187.67 million that included share based payments of €30.88 million.

During the year, the company received a cash injection of €2.7 billion from a connected entity to give the firm the financial firepower to expand its data centre business here.

Amazon has plans before Fingal Co Council for a further three new data centre buildings for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centre campus on a 26-hectare (65-acre) landholding at Cruiserath Road in west Dublin.

Planning documents lodged with the application state that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has directly invested €4.4 billion in Ireland between 2011 and 2020 and supports 8,700 jobs here.

Amazon Data Services Ltd recorded post tax profits of €36.09 million after paying corporation tax of €25.4 million.

At the end of December last, the firm had shareholder funds of €5.18 billion mainly made up of ‘Other Reserve’ of €4.73 billion.

Separate accounts for a Cork-based sister firm, Amazon Ireland Support Services Ltd show it employed 2,275 at the end of December.

Accounts for the customer and support service company disclose that since the end of December, it has paid out dividends totalling €602 million.

The report shows that the firm recorded a pretax loss of €10.8 million as revenues increased by 17 per cent to €261.92 million.

The business’s wage costs increased sharply from €96.26 million to €121.28 million as the average numbers of employed increased from 1,902 to 2,076.

Neither sets of accounts – signed off in March and February- make reference to the two recent rounds of job cuts announced by Amazon globally.