Vivendi Q3 Sales Up 19%, WoW Userbase Hits 9.3m

Publisher Vivendi has announced that its games division's sales have rised nearly 19 percent to 216 million euros ($315.2 million) in its third quarter, on the "continued momentum" of World of Warcraft and initial sales of Massive's World in Conflict. The third quarter sales are up from last year's sales of 182 million euros ($265.6 million). For the first nine months, Vivendi has seen its total sales rise 50 percent over 2006 to 716 million euros ($1.04 billion). Vivendi has chalked up the increase not only to its WoW subscriber base, but the release of its The Burning Crusade expansion, which saw release in China in the latter part of the third quarter. "Revenues also included initial sales of the highly rated action-strategy game World in Conflict from Sierra Entertainment, developed by their internal studio Massive Entertainment and released in the third quarter," read the company's statement. The company also noted that its subscriber base has continued to grow from the 9 million mark it celebrated in July to more than 9.3 million, which it says is up more than one million subscribers since December 31 of last year.