Roblox beat quarterly bookings estimates on Wednesday as more people turned to its online gaming platform for titles including "Adopt Me!" and "Murder Mystery 2", sending the shares of the company more than 18% higher in premarket trading.

The results are the latest sign that spending was holding up well on videogames in an uncertain economy, after Electronic Arts raised its annual forecast last week.

Roblox said average daily active users surged 20% to 70.2 million in the September quarter, a period during which children typically engage more in gaming due to summer breaks at schools.

"Bookings growth was particularly strong in western Europe and east Asia. The U.S. and Canada still accounted for the majority of growth," finance chief Michael Guthrie said.

Net bookings, generated from in-game purchases of Roblox's virtual currency "Robux, came in at $839.5 million, beating estimates of $830.2 million, according to LSEG data.

The company also saw a 20% jump in hours spent on its platform and a 14% rise in the number of average monthly unique paying users, signs its investments in advertising and inclusion of 17+ experiences on its platform have worked out for the company.

The numbers brought some relief to investors concerned about a slowdown at the platform following a decline in downloads for its app.

Roblox's app saw an about 11% drop in global installs from App Store and Google Play in the third quarter, the first sequential drop since 2020, according to mobile app data analytics firm Apptopia.

The company posted a net loss of $277.2 million during the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a loss of $297.8 million a year earlier.

  - Reuters