Mozilla's revenue jumped to 828 million U.S. Dollar in 2019

[Karlston]

Mozilla's revenue jumped to 828 million U.S. Dollar in 2019

Mozilla Foundation and Subsidiaries published the annual Independent Auditor's Report and Consolidated Financial Statements today. The report reveals that Mozilla earned a total of 828 million U.S. Dollar in 2019, nearly double the revenue of 2018.

 

Mozilla's revenue dropped in 2018 to 450 million U.S. Dollar from 562 million in 2017.  The organization changed the search deal model that it used throughout the years to a flexible "per-region" one. It dropped Yahoo as the search provider and signed deals with Google, Baidu and Yandex in the same year.

 

The deals make up a large part of Mozilla's annual income: it was 539 million in 2017 and 429 million U.S. Dollar in 2018. Royalties from search deals increased to 451 million in 2019 according to the financial report.

 

 

The huge increase in revenue comes from a position that is listed as "other revenue" in the financial statement. The sum of 338 million U.S. Dollar is not further explained in the document but the most likely explanation for it is the organization's legal dispute with Yahoo over the premature ending of the search deal.

 

Yahoo took Mozilla to court, and Mozilla decided to countersue for 375 million U.S. Dollar, a sum that is very close to the 338 listed under "other revenue".

 

Mozilla's dependence on search deals, in particular the deal with Google, is still very high. Google was the source of 73% of the search engine deal revenue in 2019, a drop by 2% when compared to 2018. Search engine deals make up 88% of Mozilla's revenue, a drop of 3% when compared to 2018.

 

Pocket premium subscriptions and advertising revenue jumped to 14 million U.S. Dollar from 5.3 million a year before.  The VPN service that Mozilla launched in 2018 should not have played a major role revenue-wise in 2018; it remains to be seen how much of a contribution it will make in 2019 as it was launched in the year in several countries.

 

Expenses rose from 451 million U.S. Dollar to 495 million with software development and "general and administrative" seeing increases by 26 million and 38 million U.S. Dollar respectively.

Outlook

Mozilla renewed its search deal with Google in 2020 for three years. The organization will receive an estimate of $400 to $450 million per year from the deal alone. The contract has not been published and the modalities have not been revealed by Mozilla or Google.

 

The organization let go a total of 320 employees in 2020 (70 in January and 250 in August, and retired several products including Firefox Send and Notes because it expected the coming years to be tougher financial-wise.

 

Revenue will likely remain on a similar level if you subtract the one-time payment of 2019. The premium VPN service will increase the organization's subscription and advertising revenue further, but the bulk will still come from search engine deals even though the percentage may drop by several percent again.

 

The letting-go of 320 employees will have an impact on the organization's payment of wages, but it is possible that Mozilla is expecting other expenses to rise in 2020 and beyond.

 

 

Mozilla's revenue jumped to 828 million U.S. Dollar in 2019

[Jogs]

With so much extra cash users can expect some new things.

[DKT27]

I have been more than disappointed with their newer Android app though. I expected better UI and speed. Got neither of it. They are said to be improving those things though.