By Nick Kostov 

PARIS--Vivendi SA on Wednesday reported a rise in second-quarter net profit, boosted by a windfall from the sale of its Brazilian telecom unit GVT to Telefónica SA and a strong performance from its Universal Music Group, particularly in streaming.

Vivendi, which in recent years has substantially slimmed down from a telecommunications to broadcasting conglomerate to a company with activities mainly in pay TV and music recording, said net profit rose to EUR1.96 billion, compared with EUR1.48 billion a year earlier. Sales increased in both of its key divisions.

The company has sold an array of assets from telecoms to videogames and is now seeking to rebuild itself into a large European media company under the chairmanship of its largest individual shareholder, Vincent Bolloré.

Vivendi Chief Executive Arnaud de Puyfontaine hinted that the company might look at doing more acquisitions, saying Vivendi was "at the start of a journey" that would see it build a media group with a strong footprint in southern Europe.

Vivendi has a roughly EUR9 billion cash pile from asset sales leading to questions from analysts and investors about what the company would do with the money. Having sold its telecoms assets in recent years, the company bought stakes in Telecom Italia and Telefónica this year, raising further questions about its strategy.

"In terms of participation in telecoms companies, we haven't a global strategy; we want to be opportunistic," Mr. de Puyfontaine said.

Vivendi's Universal Music Group posted sales that were up 19% to EUR1.21 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier, benefiting from the growth of its streaming business.

French pay-TV group Canal Plus increased revenue by 1% to EUR1.36 billion, with a strong performance from the group outside France and its film unit Studio Canal driving the growth, the company said.

Mr. Bolloré has pledged to make Vivendi's units work more closely together and is expected to announce changes to Canal Plus's top management team Thursday morning following a meeting with the pay-TV group's top executives, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. de Puyfontaine said there was the possibility to make the TV and music units work closer together, but he declined to comment further on the coming changes at Canal Plus.

Overall, revenue at the group rose 9% to EUR2.6 billion. Adjusted for a number of items, including income from asset sales, net profit rose 34% to EUR193 million.

Analysts described the results as mixed.

"The results still indicate that they are two businesses that require a bit of work," said Conor O'Shea, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux. "It's also a little bit early to get excited about the boost to profitability from streaming."

Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 02, 2015 15:18 ET (19:18 GMT)