| Title | Mozilla In Trouble? 2018 Revenue Fell 20%, Expenses Exceed Income For First Time | |
| Date | Saturday December 07 2019, @07:54PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the search-me dept. | ||
Mozilla's revenue in 2018 fell by nearly 20% compared to the year prior, and for the first time expenses outweighed income, the organization said in its annual financial report.
The nonprofit behind Firefox implied that the apparent downturn was misleading because of the comparison to record revenue of the year before. "2017 was an outlier, due in part to changes in the search revenue deal that was negotiated that year," Mozilla said in the "State of Mozilla 2018" report published on its website.
Mozilla also asserted that the revenue decline would not affect its work. "Despite the year-over-year change, Mozilla remains in a strong financial position with cash reserves to support continued innovation, partnerships and diversification of the Firefox product lines," the organization wrote.
Most of the $451 million in revenue the Mozilla Foundation recognized in 2018 came from royalty payments, with the bulk of that produced by deals struck for Firefox's default search spot. Mozilla Foundation is the nonprofit that in turn runs Mozilla Corp., the commercial organization that actually develops and maintains Firefox.
According to Mozilla's 2018 financial statement[0] released Nov. 21, the $451 million in overall revenue was $111 million less than in 2017, a plummet of 19.8%. The statement marked the first time Mozilla reported a year-over-year revenue decline in the 14 years that Computerworld has tracked the organization's financial health.
Of total revenue, $430 million, or about 95%, came from royalty payments. As always with Mozilla's revenue, the greatest portion of what the organization categorized as royalties came from search contracts. In 2018, those search deals accounted for 91% of all royalty revenue, Mozilla said, representing about $391 million. That was a whopping $110 million less than in 2017, a 22% decline. As with revenue, the search deal total was the first-ever search revenue slump in Mozilla's history.
Mozilla did not explain the massive decline in search revenue, other than the brief reference to 2017's number and how it was an "outlier."
0Bogus link. 2018 audited financial statement (pdf).
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