Revenues through Facebook’s Irish subsidiary rise to €12.6bn

Revenues channelled by Facebook through its Irish subsidiary rose by 59 per cent last year from €7.9 billion to €12.6 billion, newly filed accounts show.

Pretax profits increased by the same percentage from €109.6 million to €174.3 million as administrative expenses jumped to €12.1 billion from €7.7 billion a year earlier due to a rise in headcount and an increase in service and royalty fees.

Average headcount for the company, which recently announced plans to create hundreds of jobs in Ireland next year, rose by 27 per cent from 583 in 2015 to 739 last year.

Cost of sales increased from €130.1 million to €316.6 million due primarily to third party revenue and higher data hosting service fees.

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"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.

"There are over 2,000 people currently working at our Dublin offices and we recently announced that hundreds more jobs will be created in 2018, making it the largest Facebook site outside California. We're also expanding the Clonee Data Centre, further demonstrating our long-term commitment to investment in Ireland," he added.

The accounts show Facebook’s current tax charge more than doubled from €14.1 million in 2015 to €30.4 million, a rise of 116 per cent. The effective tax rate in 2016 was 17.4 per cent, slightly higher than the statutory tax rate of 12.5 per cent.

Staff costs, including wages and salaries, totalled €113.4 million, up from €77.5 million in the prior year.

The total charge relating to employee share-based payment plans doubled from €10 million to €20.1 million.

Co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg earlier this month said the company intends to take on as many as 800 new staff in Ireland, an increase of more than a third to its 2,200 strong Irish workforce.