$1.74 billion in ad revenue but pays $1.51 billion to related entities
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram generated $1.74 billion from just a fraction of Australian advertisers last year; That was a 19 percent increase from 2024, but sent $1.51 billion of that back to other Meta-owned companies for the privilege of reselling the tech giant’s ad inventory.
Financial statements submitted to the corporate regulator reveal that the tech giant’s local subsidiary Facebook Australia also paid its first dividend in at least two years ($120 million) to its US-based parent and finished the year with just 128 employees.
The applications come as the Albanian government prepares to unveil draft legislation on the News Media Bargaining Incentive, which aims to force tech giants, including Meta, to pay publishers for the value of journalism distributed on their platforms.
Meta’s financial data shows its local entity collected $1.74 billion in gross advertising revenue from select Australian customers, up from $1.46 billion in 2024. However, it only reported net income of $223.9 million, largely due to the fact that Meta had paid out $1.51 billion to companies it owned worldwide.
This is because Facebook Australia is technically a retailer; so when it sells an ad to a business in Australia, it pays another company within Meta’s US$1.7 trillion ($2.37 trillion) corporate group for the virtual space to display that ad on Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp.
Meta’s actual earnings from Australia are likely to be much higher, as the Australian company only sells to “designated” local customers, while others buy advertising directly from Meta companies based overseas.
After employee expenses of $81 million and income taxes of $47.9 million, the organization posted a net profit of $61.2 million, compared to $48.6 million the previous year, a 26 percent increase. The $120 million dividend exceeded the company’s full-year profit, reducing profits accumulated in previous years. Facebook Australia’s primary parent company is based in the corporate-friendly, high-privacy US state of Delaware.
Meta’s Australian arm has been contacted for comment. This comes as the company this week reports first-quarter US earnings alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, five companies that make up nearly a quarter of the S&P 500’s weight. Josh Gilbert, eToro’s chief analyst for the Asia-Pacific region, said the ad engine is key to whether investors can tolerate Meta’s increased AI spending.
“Meta’s story is the simplest of these five, with the dominant advertising industry funding the future of AI,” Gilbert said. “Zuckerberg has made more money than most from AI spending as he continues to deliver advertising work, but the market will want to see AI monetization consolidate, not stagnate.”
It also comes as Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth told staff the company would accelerate internal data collection under a program rebranded as the “Agent Transformation Accelerator.” He envisions a future where AI agents will perform most of the work, while employees will direct, review and improve them.
access point
A separate tool, called the Model Ability Initiative, captures how workers interact with their computers—pop-up menus, keyboard shortcuts, on-screen content—to train models that have trouble replicating human behavior, according to a report from Reuters. Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the data will not be used for performance evaluations.
Meta plans to lay off 10 percent of its global workforce as of May 20 by increasing its spending on artificial intelligence. In Australia, headcount increased marginally from 125 to 128 from 2024 to 2025; but the company has increased revenue by hundreds of millions since 2022, while losing almost 20 percent of its local workforce.
Legislation on Australia’s News Media Bargaining Promotion is expected this week. Under the compensation and offset plan, platforms with more than $250 million in annual revenue will pay news publishers about 1.5 percent or face a 2.25 percent fee if they decline.
Meta withdrew from Australian news deals in March 2024, arguing that its news content had little value. The incoming plan closes the loophole in the original code that allowed platforms to evade liability by removing news, and the fee applies regardless. The government suggested the fee could be around 2.25 percent of the company’s revenue.
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David Swan is the technology editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor of The Australian newspaper.Connect with: X or email.
