The popularity of Vivendi’s World of Warcraft computer game helped to boost the French media group’s annual results as it revealed lacklustre fourth-quarter figures from SFR, its mobile operator, and Universal Music.

The online role-playing game, in which more than 8.5 million players lead fantasy lives, helped Vivendi Games to post a 109 per cent increase in net profits in 2006, to €115 million (£78m).

The division is still a minnow in the Vivendi portfolio, but has already registered record-breaking sales in 2007.

Blizzard Entertainment, the Vivendi Games unit behind the title, today said that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the latest version of the game, sold about 3.5 million copies within one month of it launch in the US in mid-January.

Blizzard had earlier announced that the title had sold nearly 2.4 million copies in its first 24 hours - more than any other PC game had sold with a first month on sale.

Gary Severson, senior vice president and general manager at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said: "Not only was The Burning Crusade the top-selling item in our electronics department the day it released; it had the best day-one sales of any PC-game launch in our company's history."

For 2006, Vivendi generated a net adjusted profit of €2.61 billion. The group confirmed its 2007 target of about €2.7 billion. Revenues for 2006 increased to €20 billion, from €19.5 billion a year earlier

The fight put up by World of Warcraft joined less well-received numbers from Universal Music Group and SFR, the mobile operator, which are both expected to post, at best, flat earnings next year.

In the fourth quarter, Universal posted a 1.5 per cent fall in sales compared with a year earlier, to €1.7 billion, hit by a weaker dollar.

In the same period revenues at SFR, Vivendi's largest division by sales, fell by 1.4 per cent to €2.18 billion, as the division suffered the effects of amended regulation.

Jean-Bernard Levy, the Vivendi chief executive, added that Vivendi will keep its stake in Neuf Cegetel at 40 per cent after increasing it from 28 per cent in the past year. The stake is owned through SFR.

He added that Vivendi had no immediate plans to launch buyout offers for minority stakes in SFR and Canal Plus.

Ixis Securities said: "The good performances of Canal Plus Groupe and VUGames are the positive highlights of these results while Universal Music Group and SFR are not as strong as expected."

For the fulll year, Canal Plus Group, the TV division, reported pre-tax earnings up 22 per cent at €251 million, when transition costs of €177 million linked to last year’s merger with TPS were stripped out. The combination of the two groups created the largest European pay-TV platform in terms of number of subscribers.

For 2007, Vivendi expects SFR to suffer a slight drop in sales and earnings. Universal Music's sales were expected to be flat while earnings are forecast to dip.

The company proposed a 20 per cent dividend increase, to €1.20 per share.

Shares in Vivendi gained as much as 1 per cent, to €29.50, giving the company a market value of about €34 billion.

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