How much is Firefox worth, will it go public and when? The answers are a lot, almost definitely and probably this year or next.

Mozilla’s open source browser, Firefox has done what most people would have considered impossible in the past few years. It has managed to eat away at Microsoft’s domination of the browser market. When you think of the major advantages Microsoft has had in that it’s browser comes pre-installed on just about every new PC, this is even more of an achievement.

Firefox currently has more than a 15% share of the browser market. That equals approximately 100 million or more downloads. So just how much is Firefox worth?

According to the New York Times in May 2007, Firefox has generated more than $100 million in revenue over the past few years. It generated $6 million in 2004 and $52 million in 2005. If revenue continues to grow we could be looking at $100 million to $200 million per year. And that’s before it has really started trying to build a business.

Mozilla hasn’t made much effort yet to actually build a business. Their main revenue stream is derived from per browser carriage revenue for the little Google search box you see in the top right corner of your toolbar. This is equates to approximately $1 a download according to some estimates, so there is clearly a lot more money to be made.

Even if you allow $50 million a year for costs that still would leave Mozilla with annual profit of $50 million to $150 million.

So when will Mozilla/Firefox go public? Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker says “never!”. But why would the Mozilla Foundation not want several billion dollars worth of public company stock?

Let’s face it… an IPO is inevitable.

And here’s a thought… what if Mozilla bought Netscape from Time Warner and renamed the company Netscape Firefox!

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