Verizon's Irish unit sees profit drop
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Pre-tax profits at the main Irish unit of US telecommunications giant, Verizon Communications last year declined by 20% to $947.47m (€856m).
Last December, Verizon Communications announced plans to expand its operation in Ireland by setting up a new global centre of excellence in Limerick city that will employ more than 400 workers. Verizon has been active here since 2006 and employs about 1,000 workers in Dublin.
The new accounts for Verizon Services Ireland Ltd show that pre-tax profits declined as revenues reduced by 18% from $1.2bn to $982m.
The company last year paid out dividends totalling $760m to Verizon Holding UK Ltd and paid out another dividend of $475m in March of this year to Verizon UK Holding Ltd. The combined dividend payouts of this year and last year followed dividend pay-outs by the company of $1.55bn in 2022.
A note states that Verizon UK Holding Ltd has transferred its share in Verizon Services Ireland Ltd to Verizon International Inc on April 29, 2024.
The directors state that they are satisfied with the performance of the company in 2023 and future developments include establishing the new global centre of excellence in Limerick.
The company announced the new Limerick venture last December and the directors state that “some minor expenditure was incurred prior to year end". The directors say that at December 31 last, there was a committed spend of $342,000 which relates to work that will start in 2024.
In February, Verizon Communications signed a 15-year lease for 84,334sq ft (7,835sq m) of space at the newly developed 1BQ office scheme in Limerick city as part its global centre of excellence plans for Limerick Developed by Kirkland Investments.
The office occupies a high-profile waterfront site overlooking the River Shannon at Bishop’s Quay in Limerick city centre and the scheme comprises an eight-storey office block.
The principal activity of Verizon Service in Ireland is to act as the centralised strategic services organisation with specialised resources focused on providing strategic sourcing services to drive underlying value through the generation of cost savings to the entire Verizon Group.
The firm also provides global roaming services to drive the marketing and pricing aspects of Verizon Wireless global roaming service offerings to customers. The directors say that during 2023 the company began providing additional services relating to the re-sale of used devices and accessories.
A breakdown of revenues shows that $734.5m was generated through ‘sourcing’; $227.92m through ‘roaming’ and $19.4m through product re-sale services.
Numbers employed at the Verizon unit increased from 180 to 186 as staff costs rose from $27.18m to $30.74m. The company recorded post-tax profits of $829.3m after recording a corporation tax charge of $118.16m.
At the end of December 2023, the firm had accumulated profits of $445m. The company’s cash funds increased sharply, rising from $54.32m to $218.68m.