Vivendi three-month revs rise 6% to $8.8 billion

Activision Blizzard has come under fire over the past couple of months, in large part due to its handling of Infinity Ward and the Call of Duty franchise. However, detractors have not been able to argue with the publisher's financial performance. Last week, Activision Blizzard announced that it had cruised past first-quarter expectations, doubling profit to $381 million and posting revenues up 33 percent to $1.3 billion.

Today, Activision Blizzard parent company Vivendi SA announced its earnings for the same January-March period, and the game publisher represented the fastest growing segment in the French media conglomerate's business. Company-wide net revenue for the period reached €6.924 billion ($8.8 billion), a 6 percent increase from a year prior. Profit saw even better gains, rising 14.1 percent to €1.6 billion ($2.04 billion).

The game publisher's strong performance went a long way toward ameliorating declines in Vivendi's Universal Music Group. The segment saw revenues slip 12.6 percent to €889 million ($1.13 billion) during the three-month period, while profit fell 38.2 percent to €68 million ($86.6 million). Vivendi attributed the decline to decreased demand for physical music products, as well as fewer significant local and international releases.

Also driving gains for the media conglomerate was its French mobile phone segment SFR. By itself, SFR saw sales of €3.085 billion ($3.93 billion) from January-March, a 1.9 percent increase, while profit rose 2.6 percent to €985 million ($1.25 billion).

Other divisions within Vivendi include the Maroc Telecom, a Moroccan telecommunications company; Brazilian telecom GVT; and French TV and film studio Canal+.