Looks like PWE employees are getting a raise

Perfect World Co., a Chinese developer and operator of online games, said Monday its second-quarter profit jumped 60 percent, crediting a strong performance from its recently launched game "Battle of the Immortals."

The news sent American depositary shares of Perfect World up 12 cents to $37.45 in midday trading, after peaking at $40.32 earlier in the session and matching their previous 52-week high.

The Beijing-based company behind games like "Perfect World" and "Ether Saga Online" said it earned 262.6 million yuan ($38.4 million), or $4.94 yuan (72 cents) per American Depository share.

For the same quarter last year, Perfect World earned 164.5 million yuan, or 2.76 yuan per American Depository share.

Revenue increased 56 percent to 521.3 million yuan ($76.3 million) from 334.4 million yuan.

The results beat Wall Street predictions. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of 64 cents per share on $73.2 million in revenue.

Perfect World said that on average, about 761,000 people in China were playing its games at any one time during the quarter, up from 619,000 in the same period last year. The number of active paying customers in China rose to about 1.9 million from 1.5 million. The average revenue per active paying customer increased 26 percent.

The company credited the increases in active players and customers mainly to the strong performance of "Battle of the Immortals" and the continued popularity of several of its existing games.

Overseas licensing revenues totaled 46.2 million yuan ($6.8 million), up from 35 million yuan in the second quarter of last year.

Perfect World said it expects its third-quarter revenue to total between 547 million yuan ($80 million) and 563 million yuan, which would represent a 43 percent to 47 percent increase over the same period in 2008.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJWwepV87SJ_SfDqlNXPPCOEPkxAD9A0519O1