Pocket has 10 million monthly active users

Feb 27, 2017 22:31 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has acquired Read It Later, the developer behind popular app Pocket, which allows users to save articles for later. 

This is, hopefully, great news for everyone involved as Pocket will now have much deeper... pockets to draw funds from. On the other hand, the move indicates a new direction for Mozilla itself.

"Mozilla is growing, experimenting more, and doubling down on our mission to keep the Internet healthy, as a global public resource that's open and accessible to all. As our first strategic acquisition, Pocket contributes to our strategy by growing our mobile presence and providing people everywhere with powerful tools to discover and access high quality web content, on their terms, independent of platform or content silo," reads the announcement.

Therefore, Pocket is now joining Mozilla's product portfolio as a new product line alongside its well-known Firefox web browsers.

The company states that Pocket's core team and technology will continue working on the product, while also accelerating Mozilla's Context Graph initiative.

“We believe that the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content is key to keeping the internet healthy by fighting against the rising tide of centralization and walled gardens," says Chris Beard, Mozilla Ceo. "Pocket provides people with the tools they need to engage with and share content on their own terms, independent of hardware platform or content silo, for a safer, more empowered and independent online experience."

A collaboration turned into more

Pocket currently has 10 million unique monthly active users across all platforms - iOS, Android, and the web, with more than 3 billion pieces of content saved thus far.

The collaboration between the two companies over the past year, as they worked on integrating Pocket within Firefox, is what sparked the idea of Mozilla actually purchasing Read It Later.

Legally, Pocket will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Corporation, as well as part of the Mozilla open source project.