Between delayed schedules, new IP announcements and shooting people in the face, Activision-Blizzard have more than doubled their annual net profit to a total of 1.1 billion dollars which is a new record for the company.

In 2011 alone the company posted a total revenue of 4.76 billion, which was up from 4.45 in 2010, but the net profit for the company rose from just $418 million to just over $1.08 billion. To break that down, the digital business was booming which is no surprise to anyone who has heard the words CoD or Elite in the past 12 months. The business got 34% of sales digitally with $1..6 billion. In fact, on XBox Live, Blops, MW3 and MW2 dominated the top spots of multiplayer titles.

The company plans to buy another $1 billion worth of stock from their parent company Vivendi this year. They say the key to their success was the CoD franchise and that Modern Warfare 3 selling a billion dollars worth of units have helped them along with their 8th consecutive year of revenue growth.

Officially, as of January 31st of 2012, Elite has 7 million subscribers with 1.5 million people signing up for premium annual membership. Activision-Blizzard claims that Elite is now the 3rd largest game subscription service behind XBLive and WoW. Their kid-friendly Skylanders, which was released last year has gone beyond expectations. It was the number 1 kids game of 2011 and also helped along with figurines, toys and accessories. 

So with Activision taking over power-hungry teens, adults, parents and fun loving kids, how did Blizzard do on their side of things? Well it was a mixed year to be honest. Mixed, but profitable.

WoW finished the year with 10.2 million subscribers and that with the WoW annual pass announced at BlizzCon last year generated a further million registered subscribers. But overall the key growth internationally in 2012 was the free-to-play, micro-transaction funded version of Call of Duty being developed for the China market. 

It was a shame to see Activision shut down several projects across 2011 such as the studio Bizarre Creations, they shelved all music games, they axed True Crime: Hong Kong and their last iteration, Shred of the Tony Hawks franchise, barely sold 3000 copies in its first week and left them to go back to where it all began.

2012 will be an interesting year for Activision and Blizzard and while I haven't heard anything that I would personally get excited about, other than with a fury of a million suns at the fact there will be a new Call of Duty this year, then A-B may surprise me.

Via [GamesIndustry.Biz]

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