Covid Was Great For Logitech And Its Staff
The Covid pandemic provided a massive fillip for Logitech, the maker of PC mice and keyboards, headphones, headsets, webcams, speakers and other devices. In the company’s early days, some of these things used to be made in Cork, but not anymore. Instead, Logitech runs a shared services centre from City
Gate in Mahon, where employment is rewarding.
The pandemic heralded the new era of working from home, and with it the need for lots of PC peripherals. Logitech’s year-end is March, and for FY20, the period before Covid took hold, Logitech reported annual sales of $3bn. In the following 12 months, as crazy Covid restrictions were implemented worldwide, turnover surged 76% to $5.3bn.
That momentum continued in FY22, when revenue improved to $5.5bn. For FY21 and FY22, shareholders were rewarded with $300m in dividends and $580m in share buybacks. As societies return to normal, Logitech’s sales growth has ceased and the share price has halved from its 2021 peak. As with its tech peers, markets tyranny dictates that in the coming year the company will have to review its 8,200 person headcount, none of whom, the company is proud to say, are unionised.
Logitech was founded in Switzerland
in 1981 and production facilities were established in the US, Taiwan and Hungary. The company landed in Cork in 1998 but in the 2000s the company concentrated manufacturing in Asia.
Logitech’s owned manufacturing facility at Suzhou extends to c.720,000 sq. ft and accommodates 3,000 employees. Headquarters in Lausanne and an office in Newark, California, handle product marketing, sales management, technical support and other admin functions, while the base at Hsinchu in Taiwan has a focus on engineering, manufacturing support and quality assurance.
Logitech Ireland Services in Cork provides accounting and administrative services to Logitech’s EMEA activities, where annual sales are $1.7bn. Last November the company officially opened its new City Gate Plaza office, where employment is c. 300 people. In the year to March 2022, 266 people were on the payroll, up from 192 the year before. Thirty-three staff were categorised as R&D and 233 were engaged in accounting and administration. Average annual pay was €80,000 and staff also shared in €1.1m worth of share awards.
Despite its mega profits, Logitech still calls on unspecified IDA Ireland state aid, funded by taxpayers. For the state, return on investment in substantial: €2.4m of PRSI in FY22 and €8m or more in income taxes.