Yahoo! to establish European Operations Headquarters in Dublin

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin T.D., today (15^th February 2005) announced that Yahoo! Inc., of California US, is to establish its European Operations Headquarters in Dublin, with the support of IDA Ireland.

It will be a complex operation comprising financial shared services, web hosting and customer support and will create almost 400 new jobs over five years, with 75% of the jobs requiring a third-level qualification in areas such as website editorial, IT, financial services and customer support.

Welcoming the investment Minister Martin said “The extent of the activities to be undertaken and the level of investment by Yahoo! the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide, makes the winning of this Operations Headquarters a truly outstanding achievement for Ireland. IDA Ireland faced strong competition from other worldwide locations for this investment and the company’s decision to locate here proves that Ireland is a serious contender for the world’s largest Internet companies. It also endorses Ireland’s ability to support global activities that are ‘people-intensive’ and require a continuous high volume of graduates in many disciplines.”

Yahoo! is the most visited family of websites globally! delivering 2.85 billion page views per day in December 2004, and remains focused on becoming increasingly essential to the lives of consumers. Starting with its comprehensive, hand-built directory as well as the popular My Yahoo! service, Yahoo! offers a broad and deep array of communications, commerce and content services in over 100 distinct properties that lead consumers to make Yahoo! their home on the Internet and wireless devices.

John Marcom, SVP International, Yahoo! Inc., said “Our diverse on-line portfolio positions us well to achieve success in our strategy for future growth and this Irish operation is an integral part of that strategy and will be instrumental in our success. Our decision to locate the European Operations Headquarters in Ireland was influenced by several factors - the success of our existing operation in Dublin, Overture Services, which has surpassed all forecasted operating targets; the calibre and volume of graduates available in Ireland; the up-to-date and cost competitive telecommunications and data centre infrastructures and the assistance of IDA Ireland.”

The Irish operation will be responsible for Yahoo!’s European business in three main areas - a shared services centre, responsible for accounting and revenue activities and statutory reporting; a web hosting centre, supporting databases for Yahoo!’s family of websites, other applications and systems; and a customer support centre, comprising a centralised multi-lingual support service and website editorial team.