Mozilla Pulls In $163.5 Million in 2011 Revenue

From the ‘Open Source $$$$$’ files:

Mozilla released its 2011 financial report today showing staggering growth in revenues for the open source browser vendor.

In 2011, Mozilla generated $163.5 million in total revenue, up from $123.2 million in 2010. Of that $163.5 million, royalties account for the biggest share coming in at $161.9 million.

“Mozilla receives royalty income from contracts with various search engine and information providers,” the Mozilla report states. “Revenue from these contracts is determined by the search and information providers based upon end user activity. In addition, Mozilla receives royalties from the sale of various products on its website.”

So yeah, Google is Mozilla’s primary source of revenue.

The $163.5 million figure is an astounding figure when you consider that in 2007 Mozilla’s revenues were ‘only’ $75 million. So Mozilla was able to double revenues in less than four years, during the worst economic slowdown of the modern era.

I would strongly suspect that as FirefoxOS begins its rollout in 2013, that by 2015 we will see that Royalty figure grow to include more than just search providers but mobile providers as well.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.