(Yicai Global) May 26 -- Shares of Douyu International Holdings, one of China’s top two live-streaming video-game platforms, surged in pre-market trading after the firm said profit climbed more than eight times in the first quarter as more users paid for its content during the coronavirus lockdown.

Douyu’s stock price [NASDAQ:DOYU] gained as much as 14.6 percent to USD7.92 ahead of the market opening in New York today. The Wuhan-based company’s shares fell 9.2 percent yesterday to close at USD6.91.

Adjusted net profit came in at CNY296.9 million (USD41.9 million) in the three months ended March 31, compared with CNY35.3 million a year earlier, the Tencent-backed company said in an earnings report released after the Nasdaq closed yesterday. Revenue jumped 53 percent to almost CNY2.28 billion (USD321.1 million).

“We believe that by leveraging our efficient operations and accelerating our resource deployment along the upstream and downstream segments of the esports value chain, our platform will continue to maintain a solid growth trajectory going forward,” Chief Executive Officer Shaojie Chen said in a statement to accompany the financial results.

For the current quarter, Douyu forecasts revenue in the range of CNY2.36 billion and CNY2.41 billion, representing a gain of between 26 percent and 28.7 percent.

Douyu’s monthly active users numbered 158.1 million in the first quarter, a dip of 0.7 percent from a year earlier, while its mobile monthly active users rose 15.3 percent to 56.6 million, and paid users rose 26.2 percent to 7.6 million.

Income from livestreaming climbed 56 percent to CNY2.11 billion, while advertising and other revenues jumped 22.2 percent to CNY165 million.

Douyu’s main competitor Huya saw net profit gain more than triple to CNY171.2 million, while revenue jumped 47.8 percent to CNY2.4 billion. Its average mobile app MAU number rose 38.6 percent to 74.7 million.

Editor: Peter Thomas