Twitter’s Irish arm gains on lower staff costs, asset disposal

Staff costs at Twitter's main Irish subsidiary fell by almost a third in 2017 following the introduction of a cost-cutting plan a year earlier that saw senior executives such as Mark Little leaving the company.

Newly filed documents show Twitter International Limited, which is headquartered in Dublin, surpassed €700 million in revenues in 2017 and also gained from the liquidation of SecondSync, a "social TV" start-up that it aquired for an undisclosed sum in April 2014.

SecondSync, Twitter’s second British aquisition after its £25 million purchase of Tweetdeck in 2011, was liquidated last year with the Irish unit receiving €8 million of capital as the investment was recorded as a disposal.

The latest accounts show the company recorded revenues of €708.5 million last year, equivalent to €1.9 million a day. Turnover was up by 6.6 per cent versus the €664.8 million reported a year earlier.

Version 1 acquires Dublin-based data analytics firm Presidion

---

‘Day of reckoning’ looms for State relationship with tech giants

---

Google celebrates 20 years of Doodles with a trip down memory lane

---

Asana seeks to grow workforce in Republic

---

Pretax profits remained largely unchanged however, rising from €12 million to €12.2 million.

Staff numbers at the company fell by 27 last year to 175 people with employee costs, including equity settled share-based payments, totalling €19.9 million, as against €28.3 million.

Twitter announced a restructuring at the Irish unit in October 2016 as it sought to cut employee numbers by 9 per cent globally as it struggled to keep pace with rivals such as Facebook. Among those to leave the company on the back of the announcement was former RTÉ journalist and Storyful founder Mr Little who had only taken over as Irish managing director six months earlier.

Mr Little now heads NevaLabs, a start-up he co-founded with former Storyful managing editor Aine Kerr.

Shareholder funds at Twitter’s Irish subsidiary totalled €266.1 million last year, which included €22.7 million in accumulated profits.