Dublin Facebook HQ records revenues of €9.7m per hour in 2024

Gordon Deegan

The Dublin-based international HQ for the operator of Facebook and Instagram recorded revenues of €9.7 million per hour across 2024, new figures show.

According to new accounts filed to the Companies Office here, Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd’s revenues surged by 22 per cent or €15.54 billion to €85.29 billion in a record performance for the business.

In the back of the average weekly revenues of €1.64bn for 2024, pre-tax profits at the Irish arm of social media giant, Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd increased by 57 per cent from €1.85 billion to €2.9 billion.

The revenues recorded by the Dublin-based unit account for 60 per cent of the US-headquartered Meta’s global revenues of $164.5 billion (€142 billion) for 2024.

The directors for the Irish arm state that “substantially all revenue is generated from advertising, which has continued to grow during the year”.

They state that the revenue increase “was attributable to growth in advertising revenue from third-party customers generated by displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party mobile applications”.

The firm recorded a post-tax profit of €2.54 billion for 2024 after incurring a corporation tax charge of €366.8 million.

The accounts disclose that during the year, the company paid a dividend of €1.5 billion to parent company, Facebook International Operations Ltd.

The directors disclose that in 2025, the board approved further dividends of €1.9 billion to its parent.

The directors state that headcount last year reduced by 20 per cent and this followed a reduction of 18 per cent in the workforce during 2023.

Last year, the number of employees reduced by 433 from 2,171 to 1,738.

The €453.9 million in staff costs included €116.5 million in share-based payments.

The accounts show that €257.15 million was paid out in salaries which equates to an average salary of €147,959 before shared-based payments of €116.5 million and ‘other benefits’ of €40.35 million are taken into account.

A breakdown of the roles shows 570 employed in operations, 499 in administration, 369 in sales and marketing and 300 in engineering.

Pay to directors reduced by €400,000 to €2.3 million, along with €9.6 million under long-term incentive schemes benefits.

At the start of 2024, the firm had set aside €4.15 billion to deal with potential regulatory fines, and €1 billion was released during the year to deal with fines.

The company’s Research and Development (R&D) costs last year increased from €155.43 million to €186.3 million. The profit also takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €66.92 and foreign exchange loss of €181.5 million.

The company’s operating profits last year increased by 51 per cent from €1.88 billion to €2.86 billion after administrative expenses of €79.32 billion and cost of sales of €3.1 billion are taken into account.

Net interest payments received of €43.25 million increased profits to a pre-tax profit of €2.9 billion.

The dividend payout offset by the post-tax profits last year resulted in accumulated profits increasing from €891 million to €2.59 billion.

Shareholder funds totalled €2.7 billion. Cash funds dipped from €5.89 billion to €5.14 billion.