Call of Duty Elite has become a smash success for Activision, inspiring hopeful imitators. The company revealed just how successful its been in today's Q4 2011 earnings call today, announcing that it's preparing a "2.0" launch to coincide with the next Call of Duty title. Currently the service has reached more than 1.5 million premium annual memberships.

This shows a rough 1-in-5 penetration rate for the $50 annual service, out of the more than seven million total Elite members, counting non-premium free memberships.

Within a week of the Elite launch, the company had sold one million premium memberships, and four million total. The sign-ups seem to have dropped off sharply after its first week, having taken another two months to reach this point, but 1.5 million people paying $50 is nothing to sneeze at.

Elite membership grants early access to to the Modern Warfare 3 season of content, along with social sorting features and updates like the upcoming Clan Operations. In addition, the company promised to launch new Elite features within the next 60 days.