NEARLY HALF OF Airbnb’s $6 billion in earnings last year came through the main Irish arm of the company. 

The Dublin-based Airbnb Ireland Unlimited Company operates the Airbnb online marketplace for the company outside the US, China and a portion of Japan.

The $2.82 billion in revenues recorded by the Dublin-based firm account for 47% of Airbnb’s global revenues of $5.99 billion (€5.7 billion) last year.

The main Irish arm of Airbnb returned to profit last year to record pre-tax profits of $121.49 million (€116.85 million).

New accounts show that the business returned to profit as revenues surged by $1.03 billion or 57.5% from $1.79 billion to $2.82 billion.

The directors for the Irish arm state in 2022 “we have seen significant growth with nights booked exceeding 2019 levels”.

Global revenues for the first nine months of this year confirm the ‘significant growth’ with revenues of $6.49 billion – an increase of $2 billion or 33% on the corresponding period for 2021.

The directors of the Irish based operation state that “throughout 2021, we continued to face lower demand for long distance travel and overall depressed nights booked compared to 2019 due to the impact of Covid-19″

The $121.49 million pre-tax profit follows a pre-tax loss of $3 billion in 2020 that arose chiefly from a non-cash intellectual property impairment of $2.57 billion as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The accounts disclose that in a post balance sheet event on June 30th of this year the firm recorded a $4.33 million fixed asset impairment charge as the company announced that it would shift to a remote work model allowing its employees to work remotely.

The note states that “the shift to a remote work model is a direct response to the change in how employees work due to the impact of Covid-19”.

Numbers employed at the business last year declined by 83 from 444 to 361 with 350 engaged in customer support and administration with 11 in marketing.

The business here also includes the provision of customer support service to users and the company also out-sources a portion of marketing and business support services to other subsidiary companies.

Last year, combined salary and share-based payments costs totalled $48.17 million and average pay, including the share based payments, totalled $133,063.

Directors’ pay last year declined from $2.6 million to $1.7 million.

Last year, the profit took account of non-cash depreciation costs of $4.53 million and foreign exchange losses of $13.53 million.

The company last year recorded post tax profits of $114.67 million after paying corporation tax of $6.8 million.

At the end of last year, the company’s shareholder funds totalled $60.86 million. The company’s cash funds increased from $140.07m to $558.3 million.

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two ‘Hosts’ welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over four million hosts who have welcomed more than one billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe.