WASHINGTON: Mozilla has released its annual financial report for 2014, revealing a revenue increase of less than 5 percent year-over-year, 90 percent of which came from Google and Yahoo. Every November, Mozilla releases its financial report for the previous year, but the 2014 version is a particularly complex one.
For the last five years, every time you input a query into Firefox’s search bar, Google made a little bit of money from AdSense ads. Last November, the organization signed a five-year deal with Yahoo, which went into effect at the end of 2014. A portion of the money, whether generated by Google or Yahoo, passes to Mozilla via a revenue-sharing deal.
The total revenue for the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiaries was $311 million in 2012 and $314 million in 2013. The latter figure grew by 4.9 percent to $329 million in 2014. Mozilla’s expenses were up by 7.6 percent to $318 million in 2014. Just like in 2013, expenses outgrew revenues.
Basic math tells us that Mozilla’s contract with Google brought in almost $280 million in 2012 and just over $282 million in 2013. But 2014 was a tricky year.
“While Google will continue to be a search option for Firefox users, we are not renewing our commercial agreement,” Mozilla executive Denelle Dixon-Thayer told VentureBeat last November. “2013 is the last full year for which we will record revenue from Google. Our agreement with Yahoo! begins taking effect in December.”
