Mozilla increased revenue significantly in 2021

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Mozilla published its annual audited financial statement for the year 2021, and the outlook could not be better.



The organization managed to increase total revenue to $600 million, an increase of more than $100 million compared to the year 2020. Search engine royalties, especially paid by Google but also other search engine companies, increased by more than $80 million in the year to $527 million.

While that is impressive growth, subscription and advertising revenue grew even more. Last year, Mozilla earned $24 million from subscriptions and advertising.

In 2021, revenue grew to $56 million.

Mozilla's main revenue sources grew considerably. In fact, 2021's revenue is second only to 2019's revenue, but only because of a one-time payment Mozilla received in the year from Yahoo.

The organization managed to reduce expenses significantly in 2021 next to that. Total expenses were $339 million in 2021, a reduction of more than $100 million when compared to 2020's $438 million.

Software development expenses were reduced from $242 million to $199 million, general and administrative expenses from $137 million to $81 million, and branding and marketing from $37 million to $30 million.

Taken together, Mozilla managed to increase its net assets by almost $200 million to $1.164 million in 2021.

Still highly dependent on Google

Revenue depends to a large degree on search engine deals. While revenue from subscriptions and advertising is growing faster, it still makes up only a small amount of Mozilla's total revenue.

About 87% of Mozilla's total revenue comes from royalties. The organization renewed its search engine contract with Google in 2020 for three years. Details were not disclosed and since Firefox's user base seems to stagnate, it could be that Mozilla got better rates from Google. There are other possibilities, including more searching activity by Firefox users.

Subscription and advertising revenue grew by 133% in 2021. Information about individual services is not provided in the financial statement. Mozilla established several services in the past couple of years, including Firefox VPN, Pocket Premium and Hits, Firefox Relay and others. Advertising revenue is included in the section as well.

Analysis and Outlook

Mozilla managed to increase revenue by over $100 million in 2021. The 20.97% increase in revenue can be attributed to the new 2020 search engine deal with Google, and Mozilla's focus on increasing subscription and advertising revenue.

The organization is still dependent on search engine deals, and it looks as if this is not going to change anytime soon. The dependency is reduced every year though, and newly established services such as Firefox Relay Premium, may accelerate the trend in the coming years.

The search engine contract with Google ends in 2023 and there is a good chance that it will be renewed again in that year.
Mozilla's future is looking bright, financially.

You can check out the financial report for 2021 here.

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