Profits and turnover rise at Irish unit of chipmaker Xilinx

Profits rose by almost a third last year for the Irish subsidiary of leading chipmaker Xilinx, which last month announced plans to create 100 new jobs in Ireland.

Recently filed accounts show Xilinx Ireland Unlimited reported a 32.2 per cent jump in pre-tax profits from $16.7 million (€14.1 million) to just under $22 million (€18.6 million) for the 12 months to the end of March 2017.

Turnover increased 13.9 per cent versus the prior year to $541.2 million (€458.9 million) from $475.8 million (€403.4 million).

Xilinx Ireland is the group’s primary component supplier for markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

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The semiconductor maker, which currently employs about 350 people in the Republic, established its EMEA headquarters in Dublin in 1995. It also runs a research and development (R&D) operation in Cork and has a small facility in Belfast employing 30 engineers.

Investment

It announced plans to hire an additional 100 employees in Dublin and Cork last month as part of a $40 million (€33.9 million) investment to support its R&D and engineering work for advanced technologies and products, including the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in areas such as 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), embedded vision and cloud computing.

The latest accounts for the company show its net operating expenses declined by 6.3 per cent last year to $75.9 million (€64.3 million) due to a decrease in distribution costs.

A breakdown of expenses show distribution costs fell from $45.2 million (€38.3 million) to $39.5 million (€33.5 million), while R&D expenses totalled $22.3 million (€18.9 million) versus $21.4 million (€18.1 million) a year earlier.

R&D spending as a whole accounted for 29 per cent of operating costs compared to 26 per cent in the previous year.

The average number of employees working for the company rose to 250 from 238, with related costs, including wages and salaries, rising to $34.2 million (€29 million) from $32.7 million (€27.7 million).