Mozilla earned close to $600 million in 2022
Mozilla published its audited financial statement for the year 2022 this week. Revenue has stayed approximately the same, but a certain trend starts to make a noticeable impact on the organization's revenue.
First the main figures. Total revenue was $593 million, which is $6 million less than what Mozilla earned in 2021. It is still $100 million more than the revenue of 2020.
The majority of revenue comes from royalties. Mozilla does not divide royalties payments by company, but the majority comes from the Google search deal. Royalties earned Mozilla $510 million in 2022, which is $17 million less than in 2021. Since some of it is performance-based, it is possible that losses in users have attributed to the decline. Then again, there may be other factors at play here.
Mozilla's other revenue sources are dominated by subscription and advertising. These rose to $75 million in 2022, an increase of nearly $20 million over the 2021 revenue.
The past couple of years saw the release of several products by Mozilla. Some of them were free to use, others require a subscription. Notable products established in the past couple of years are Firefox Monitor, Mozilla VPN, and Firefox Relay. There is also the FakeSpot service that Mozilla acquired recently that may help increase revenue in the coming years. Last but not least, Pocket is still growing strong and contributing to revenue.
Expenses have skyrocketed on the other hand from $339 million in 2021 to $425 million in 2022. The main driving factors are software development, general and administrative, and branding and marketing.
Software development increased by $21 million to $220 million in 2022. Branding and marketing by $28 million to $58 million, and general and administrative from $81 million to $108 million.
All in all, Mozilla managed to increase its net assets by almost $150 million in 2022. Assets sit now at a comfortable $1197 million.
Mozilla and Google agreed on a three-year search deal in 2022. Both companies did not reveal specifics about the deal, but it is clear that Google is still the main factor behind Mozilla's revenue.
Both parties have not made any announcement regarding an extension of the deal. Mozilla's survival still depends on search engine deals, even though other revenue sources show continued growth. While Google is the most likely candidate, there is also a possibility that Microsoft could take over with its Bing search engine.
Mozilla accelerated its investment strategy in 2023. The organization invested in a total of 25 companies and acquired Fakespot up to this day. Last year, Mozilla acquired 2 companies and invested in 3 companies, according to well-informed blogger Sören Hentzschel)
Now You: have you tried Firefox recently?
“In the third quarter of 2023, Google’s revenue amounted to over 76.3 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 68.2 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior. The company amounted an annual revenue of 279.8 billion U.S. dollars throughout 2022, its highest value to date, with most of its earnings being powered by advertising through Google sites and its network.”
Makes Mozilla appear like some eatery on a corner in Greece–family owned, open for one meal a day. If that . . . .
Bless the Fox. Their financial status are in top health.
With Microsoft sort of moving away from Bing in order to focus on its AI projects. I seriously doubt that Microsoft would do any sort of Bing deal with Mozilla. Besides the fact Mozilla would take a significant revenue hit with Bing over Google search given Bing’s dismal market share. With Firefox’s slow downward trend in users eventually Google may decide to simple end its search deal. That would basically put a end to Mozilla with no other significant revenue product that could possible make up that loss.
So, their solution to improving the browser was to increase branding and marketing and administrative expenses by 64%? In a year in which total revenue only increased by 1.2%?
Sounds legit. They should probably cut their software development expenses by 50% so they have more money for all that great branding and marketing they do. It’s really all the branding and marketing work that will make Firefox a faster, more private, and more secure browser, not all that silly software development.
Mozilla, the Foundation behind the Firefox web browser, is absolutely mammoth — with over One Billion Dollars in assets.
Where does all that money come from?
Where is it being spent?
With Firefox market share in a nosedive, how is Mozilla reacting?
The Lunduke Journal spent some time with Mozilla’s financial disclosures and came away with some wild observations — bizarre expenditures (including to companies that don’t even seem to exist) and political organizations with no relationship to Mozilla’s core business.
There’s a lot here. Read to the end. It gets wild.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla
It comes from Google. Really.
What are the odds that Google will stop the cashflow in 2026 after half the planet dumps Google Chrome after the second half of next year…? Yes, Google WILL resort to that.
It would still give Mozilla another 2-3 years, if they manage to close another deal with Google. The other revenue sources won’t make the bulk of revenue by then, but they may contribute 30% or so if the trend continues. Mozilla could also switch to using Bing by then.
@Martin
Knowing Microsoft, they probably smell a takeover here. If Firefox gets that many new users Microsoft could easily throw a big bunch of cash on the table and then proceed to turn Firefox into another Edge horrorshow.
Yes, I’m still mad about how they murdered Nokia phones.
@Greed prevails
Are you serious? Mozilla and Firefox ARE DYING, stop pretending anyone would buy it, there is no value in Firefox nor Mozilla, it only survives because of Google search deal, and the search deal is made to keep ‘monopolies’ cases away, not because they need people do use Google in Firefox.
In fact, many browsers use Google as default without getting a cent because they know people usually use Google.
Nobody wants to buy Mozilla and most people just hope it does so the drama will be over and people can just move on to reality world where Chromium browsers are the best alternative.
Microsoft is fine with Chromium, switching from Blink to Gecko is not a click of a button, and people like you probably live in the fairy tale that somehow Microsoft wants a browser that has less marketshare than Edge and it is close to the same marketshare as Opera. 3 whatever percent.
@Anonymous, dying isn’t being dead to start with, but do you have a crystal ball to assert such a pronostic?
Google may intervene in Mozilla’s survival but should we refuse a devil’s helping hand if it allows a noble aspiration to be?
Your comment is all articulated around the correlation of quality and popularity, others as well have this mental blockage to assume both are related. We may consider the meaning of “happy few” as we may consider that the astonishing popularity of a company all devoted to advertisement and user tracking is relevant of a masses’ blindness and/or disinterest for their very privacy values.
All this is in the context of a planetary environment where battles of truth have replaced dialogs of quest for truth. I’d blame anyone asserting what is best as what is worst when we could simply share argument relevant of two matters : what we use personally, why, and what we consider evil, bad, average, good, great globally speaking … and with arguments other than those referring to stats, which is nonsense.
I like and use Firefox but far from me the idea it’d be the best, the holy saint, the Graal. I have a browser which is perfectible of course but before all the conditions via flags to set prefs according to my needs. I run many extensions, my PC is no longer a teen-ager, yet the browser runs fast, never encounters an issue, I know its in-depths relatively well, and all this participates to the fact I keep surfing with that board. No hatred, no adoration, rather bais opportunism in my case. And I am certainly not the only one to have this approach, should we be a minority :)
@Anonymous
talk about being a hater… lol.
“there is no value in Firefox”
“most people just hope it does so the drama will be over and people can just move on to reality world where Chromium browsers are the best alternative”
Most people don’t care, they just use whatever browser they use and get on with their day. It is a minority that wishes death to other browsers or gets truly upset with them.
Firefox is a fine browser and outshines chromium in some regards, whilst not in others. Most importantly, it is functional and whatever you may think of it, it is an alternative to chrome.
Your comment is just hating on Firefox for the sake of it, you come across a little unhinged, fyi.
@bruh
Well said.
Yeah but I went down this rabbit hole ages ago when looking a way to donate to firefox. Isn’t it Mozilla not Firefox, or something retarded like that? Like Mozilla is some non-profit specialising in useless garbage, whereas the browser is just one small aspect, trudging along?
It is not possible to donate directly to Firefox. Mozilla Corporation (which develops Firefox) is a for-profit organization and cannot accept donations by law. Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization and can accept donations, but it cannot direct this money to Mozilla Corporation (i.e. to Firefox development).
There are no non-obvious “loopholes” here, as it is illegal to attempt to circumvent this.
Mozilla Corporation can receive money only by earning it, for example, by providing paid services like Pocket.
Hopefully this link is not going to be deleted. It shows some garbage Mozilla involved in outside Firefox.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla
You are the second person to post the landuke link in this thread. Is landuke paying affiliate links or something?
I have seen these kinds of articles.
Personally I think Mozilla should fund Firefox, or give an option to directly support the browser.
how much merdoogle pay you?
InsaRa
Mate, I use firefox primarily everywhere. With custom userchrome css settings, I’d never use anything else, although I also use IE for niche things. I’ve spent in total probably days of my life learning about the ins and outs and configuring firefox.
But seriously, look into Mozilla, what are those guys doing? Nothing of value, that’s what. To make matters worse they’re totally woke. As bad if not worse than google.
Yeah, they do much needed “research”…
“Fellow Research: The Decentralized Web of Hate”
https://web.archive.org/web/20201102163124/https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/fellow-research-decentralized-web-hate/
And they have a “fantastic” CEO..
“We need more than deplatforming”
https://web.archive.org/web/20210108192114/https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/
…and she probably think that what Ireland are about to do is a very great idea that will serve the people just well, one of the most crazy proposals to be seen this year….
“Global free speech’s latest battleground: Ireland vs. Elon Musk ”
https://nypost.com/2023/12/05/opinion/global-free-speechs-latest-battleground-ireland-vs-elon-musk/
…and the year isn’t over yet!
@Karl
“Elon Musk Signs Letter Pledging Tesla’s Commitment to China’s ‘Core Socialist Values’”
https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-musk-signs-letter-pledging-teslas-commitment-to-chinas-core-socialist-values/
We get it. You love Google and Big tech because it fits with your far left ideology.