14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla Foundation chairman Mitchell Baker has revealed the financial information for 2005 for both the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation. Combined, the two pulled in a total of $52.9 million revenue. Out of this figure, $29.8 million was the Mozilla Foundation's revenue.
According to Baker, the main source of revenue is the relationships Mozilla has build with the search engines. "The remainder coming from a combination of contributions, sales from the Mozilla store, interest income, and other sources. These figures compare with 2003 and 2004 revenues of $2.4M and $5.8M respectively, and reflect the tremendous growth in the popularity of Firefox after its launch in November 2004," informed Baker.
While Mozilla has reeked in revenue of almost $53 million, the expenses for both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporations were only $8.2 in 2005. The Mozilla Foundation was responsible for roughly $3 million of all the expenses. "By far the biggest portion of these expenses went to support the large and growing group of people dedicated to creating and promoting Firefox, Thunderbird, and other Mozilla open source products and technologies. The rate of expenses increased over the year as new employees came on board. The unspent revenue provides a reserve fund that allows the Mozilla Foundation flexibility and long term stability," added Baker.
Mozilla has failed to reveal the revenue for 2006 as yet. But considering the jumps it has made from $2.4 to $5.8 and to $52.9 million in just three years, the revenue for 2006 stands to reach unprecedented levels.
The various versions of Firefox have been constantly increasing Mozilla's browser market share in the detriment of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. While Mozilla now accounts for a total of 14% of the browser market, Microsoft has dropped below the 80% milestone in December 2006. As Mozilla's main source of revenue is based on the relationships the organization has constructed with the search engines, the introduction of the search box and Google as the default search engine in Firefox 2.0 will only increase the revenue in 2006.