Mozilla Corp chief executive officer, Mitchell Baker, revealed the financial figures in a web posting last week that explained the decision to set up the organization as a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
According to Baker, the majority of the revenue came from search engine relationships, while the Mozilla store, interest, and other sources also contributed. Revenue was up 812.1% from $5.8m in 2004, indicating the success of Firefox and the for-profit subsidiary.
Mozilla Corp was set up in 2005 to make the most of revenue generating opportunities in order to provide funds to support the work of the Mozilla Foundation. Together the two organizations had expenses of just $8.5m in 2005, with the profit flowing into a reserve fund for the Foundation.
With growth of 812.1%, Mozilla Corp was the fastest growing vendor tracked by ComputerWire in 2005. The nearest any company came to matching it was Emblaze Ltd with 522.6% growth, followed by TomTom NV with 274.2% growth. Meanwhile, a margin of 84.5% was bettered only by Google, Akamai Technologies and RealNetworks in 2005.
With revenue of $52.9m, Mozilla Corp also brought in more revenue than the likes of Pervasive Software, NetManage, FalconStor, WebSideStory, VA Software, and The SCO Group in 2005.
Since it was released in November 2004, Firefox has grown steadily to claim a 12.2% share of the global browser market in November 2006, according to web analysis software firm OneStat.com.
