Burning Crusade Drives Vivendi Games Q1 Sales Up 117%

Officials from French media and telecoms group Vivendi, parent of Vivendi Games, have released details of the company’s first quarter sales, showing profits up 22.8% to $1.04 million, and sales up 117.2% in its games division driven by World Of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade. Overall company sales across all divisions saw an increase of 5.3 percent to 5 billion Euros ($6.7 billion), and profits at 771 million ($1.04 million), an increase of 22.8 percent, with an adjusted 2007 profit outlook expected at 2.7 billion Euros ($3.7 billion). It was Vivendi's games division, however, that showed extremely strong results, with sales rising 117 percent over last year to 291 million Euros ($394 million) on the January release of the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion. Vivendi notes that the expansion set a one-month record for PC game sales when it sold through roughly 3.5 million copies across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The company followed that with a Korean launch in February, and an April launch in Taiwai, Hong Kong and Macau, and expects to release the pack in China "as soon as possible." Vivendi has said that the expansion has driven World of Warcraft users to a total of over 8.5 million players worldwide. The division's earnings before interest and income taxes was up to 107 million Euros ($145 million), up $114 million from last year, driven again by The Burning Crusade, a figure it says was impacted by "increased investment in Sierra Entertainment's internal studios as well as continued start-up costs for the Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile divisions."