Amazon exceeds 350 M in advertising turnover in Spain
Amazon now has an advertising turnover of 357 million euros in Spain. This is shown in the annual accounts of the company Amazon Online Spain for 2021, recently filed with the Mercantile Registry.
The company’s corporate purpose is to distribute and market products and online offers for customers in the online advertising and digital media business.
With these 357 million euros, this line of Amazon’s business soared by 37% compared to the previous year, when the amount was 260 million euros.
This figure places Amazon as one of the largest recipients of advertising revenue in Spain. It is above, for example, the entire Prisa group, which had a turnover that year of 298 million euros from advertising. For the moment, it is still far behind Atresmedia and Mediaset, which each earn more than 600 million euros a year from the sale of their advertising space.
It is also ahead of other technology platforms, such as Google, which is estimated to earn around 1.4 billion euros from advertising in Spain; or Meta, which could be around 1 billion.
However, Amazon’s advertising business is the fastest growing. In Spain it has done so at a slightly higher rate than that recorded globally (+32%). Although it is still a small part of its revenue, which reached 4,000 million euros in Spain in 2021, according to Cinco Días calculations.
In any case, thanks to the notable increase in activity, Amazon already employed 151 professionals at the close of the 2021 financial year, dedicated exclusively to the advertising business. That is about 40 more than in the previous year. As a result, spending on salaries already exceeds 14 million euros in Spain. That is to say, the business cost of each employee is close to 100,000 euros. All of them are led by Germán Martínez del Olmo, Amazon Ads Country Manager for Spain.
8.6 million for the Google Tax
Despite the significant increase in turnover, the advertising business company posted a loss in 2021 of €1.7 million, compared to a loss of €356,000 a year earlier. It should be noted that the Spanish subsidiary had supplies of 253 million euros, which are delivered directly to its international parent company as an expense derived from the marketing services contract signed between them.
On the expenses side, Amazon recognises in its income statement a payment of 8.6 million euros for the Digital Services Tax (known as the Google Tax), which is in force from January 2021. It also includes a provision of 68 million euros to cover tax liabilities classified as “probable” by the company as a result of changes in the interpretation of the rules. In this regard, Amazon Online Spain’s corporate income tax for 2017 is open to inspection for tax purposes.
