We just submitted iterasi to the Firefox add-on directory and so I read with interest Basil Hashem’s summary of the add-on ecosystem. Basil is director of products at the Mozilla Foundation.
According to Basil, here’s what the add-on market looks like:
* There are more than 180 million active monthly Firefox users (more than 60 million daily)
* There have been more than 800 million add-on downloads since the inception of AMO (AMO is the Mozilla site for add-ons.)
* There are about 150 million active daily add-ons (Each add-on downloaded from AMO pings once a day)
* AMO hosts about 5600 add-ons and 800 themes
* We believe that there is a sizable number of add-ons not hosted on AMO (more than 1000?)
* The AMO site has about 4-5 million page views and more than 750,000 user sessions daily
* Every day 10-20 blog/news articles are published reviewing or mentioning some Firefox add-ons
What this all means for Firefox? Add-ons give users choice. That’s a core part of the Mozilla mission. Customization gives Firefox an edge over Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. The add-on ecosystem makes Firefox the platform for innovation on the browser platform.
It all adds up. Firefox is the place to be.
