World of Warcraft revenue helps Vivendi Universal level up!

Fresh numbers on the revenue performance of WoW can be gleamed from the earnings report of Blizzard's parent company Vivendi Universal:

Throughout the first half of 2005, Vivendi Universal Games' (VUG) revenues of EUR 238 million were 61% above the prior year (up 67% at constant currency). This increase was driven by the critically acclaimed subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft as well as the first quarter launch of Robots, the children's game based on the Robots movie released by Fox. World of Warcraft successfully launched commercially in Europe, Korea and China and continues to be the fastest-growing game in its category, achieving over 2 million customers via directly managed operations in North America, Europe and Korea, and 1.5 million paying customers in China (as of July 2005, with a commercial launch on June 7, 2005) in conjunction with local partner The9.

Revenue growth looks to be accelerating as they move into China:

For the second quarter of 2005, VUG's revenues of EUR 125 million were 76% above the prior year (up 83% at constant currency). This dramatic increase was driven by the success of World of Warcraft.

You can read all off the bean counter details here.

How much of this revenue is actually being crafted into profits? Stay tuned to this blog for a more detailed analysis in the coming weeks.