As a limited liability company, Canonical annually submits financial reports to Companies House in the UK. The most recent reveals a total turnover of $251 million in 2023, a $46 million improvement on the previous year. The overall profit for the financial year was $12.5 million, a considerable increase from $3.9 million in 2022.
The figures are particularly impressive given that just five years ago Canonical reported that it was operating at a loss, with only around half the revenue and employees it enjoys today. Speaking of personnel, from 2022 to 2023 the staff also increased from 858 to 1,034.
Part of this success is no doubt thanks to businesses paying for Ubuntu Pro plans, although subscriptions remain free for personal use. Canonical also apparently has other services designed for enterprise-level Ubuntu up its sleeve, such as the recently released Ubuntu Core.
In mid-August, Canonical also made the very welcome announcement that as of Ubuntu 23.10, the operating system will use more up-todate Linux kernels.
Traditionally, Ubuntu has followed a hard time-based release process, with release dates committed six months or more in advance. This has always been at odds with the process followed by the upstream kernel developers, who generally produce a stable release every two to three months.