THERE WAS no recession on the internet last year as Google’s main Irish subsidiary posted a profits increase almost five-fold to €47.5 million.
The internet giant, which employs more than 1,500 people at its European headquarters in Dublin, attributed the increase in turnover, revenue and staff numbers to strong growth in the online advertising market.
Google Ireland Ltd’s turnover increased to €7.9 billion in 2009, up from €6.7 billion the previous year, according to its accounts which have just been filed at the Companies Registration Office. John Herlihy, a Google vice-president and its senior executive here, said the growth had continued into 2010.
Google’s Irish operations, which are based on Barrow Street and were established in 2004, are its headquarters for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and provide technical, sales and operations support to customers in more than 50 countries.
The multilingual workforce is primarily involved in sales activities and Google has said numerous times it chose Dublin as its European headquarters as it is an attractive place to get staff to relocate to.
Despite hiring a significant number of Irish graduates, Mr Herlihy has been active in raising the issue of Irish education standards with the Government.
While workers elsewhere in the economy faced pay cuts last year, the average salary at Google Ireland increased from €64,007 to €72,207. Staff also benefited from the award of stock options and other share-based payments totalling €16.9 million, although this was down from €18.7 million the previous year.
Employment at the company has continued to grow in 2010. Earlier this year it announced it was opening a second centre in the capital focused on its mapping and location-based services, which will create an additional 200 jobs this year.
The accounts show that Google paid taxes of €18.3 million in Ireland, up from €8.1 million in 2008.
The Irish subsidiary spent €18.8 million on research and development in 2009, a fall of €700,000.
Profits at Google Ireland have been retained and no dividend was paid to its ultimate parent, Google Inc. The Irish operation had total retained profits of €37.1 million at the end of 2009.
As Google has added products and services such as maps, e-mail and a web browser to its original search engine, it has increasingly fallen foul of privacy advocates who feel it is collecting too much information on internet users. The notes to the Irish accounts list privacy concerns and any potential breach of its security among the “principal risks and uncertainties facing the business”.