(Bloomberg) -- Roblox Corp., the gaming company popular with young people, soared Wednesday after reporting higher-than-ever revenue and player counts.

In the fourth quarter, Roblox’s bookings rose 25% to $1.13 billion, beating analysts expectations of $1.08 billion. A record 71.5 million people logged in every day to play Roblox’s wonky, whimsical games, the San Mateo, California-based company said Wednesday. 

Shares surged 13.9% to $46.24 at 10:00 a.m. in New York, the most in nearly a year. 

“We ended the year with our strongest rate of quarterly bookings growth in two years and delivered our first quarter of $1 billion in bookings,” said Roblox Chief Financial Officer Michael Guthrie in a statement.

The games industry has been experiencing a turbulent period after a stretch of high engagement during the pandemic. Although 2023 was a big year for blockbuster games, an estimated 10,000 game developers were laid off. So far, in 2024, over 6,000 people have been let go, including at Riot, Blizzard, Unity, Twitch and Discord, according to calculations by video-game site Kotaku.

Roblox has not experienced mass layoffs, although several staffers left the company after the mid-January deadline for employees to return to the office. Roblox will continue hiring, the company said Wednesday.

Roblox’s growth has continued nearly without pause since the pandemic. On top of attracting more users, Roblox is monetizing them at a higher rate than ever. Each player paid on average $15.75 during the quarter to purchase items like costumes and cosmetics for use in games, surpassing analysts’ expectations of $15.16. In the previous quarter, users paid $12 on average.

Roblox is anticipating that the trend will continue. The company shared its earnings forecast for the first time, projecting strong growth in 2024 over the same quarters last year, while acknowledging that over the holidays players tend to spend more time and money on video games. Daily active users and revenue are expected to increase in the next quarter.

Part of Roblox’s growth strategy is ubiquity. The free game is available on PCs, Apple computers, smartphones, consoles and even VR devices like the Meta Quest.

The company is also growing its international user base. Earlier this week, Roblox announced a new AI tool for translating users’ text chats. Chief Technology Officer Daniel Sturman said in a blog post it allows players with different languages to speak to each other. Roblox now translates 16 languages through real-time AI technology, he said.

“This is the first step really to some of the dreams that we shared where a class in the United States might have a partner school somewhere overseas and be able to go visit them and communicate with them,” Chief Executive Officer Dave Baszucki said on a Wednesday earnings call.

(Updates with share price in paragraph four and company comments throughout.)

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