Free-to-play game giant Nexon posted better than expected results in its Q1 2012 earnings report last week, reporting revenues of 30.3 billion yen ($379.5 million), up 46 percent year-on-year and 37 percent quarter-over-quarter. Net income climbed 60 percent year-on-year to 12.3 billion yen ($154 million).

Across all its mobile and social titles, Nexon’s monthly active users declined 3.9 percent year-on-year to 82.8 million, but were up 3.5 percent over the company’s Q4 2011 total of 80 million MAU. Nexon also reported 10.9 percent of users paid in Q1 2012, up from the 8.3 percent of paying users the company reported in Q1 2011. Average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) increased to 1,761 yen ($22.05) in Q1 2012, up from 1,427 yen ($17.87) ARPPU in the same period a year ago. Nexon also revealed its free-to-play racing Kartrider Rush has been downloaded more than 8.2 million times to date between iOS and Android.

Originally a Korean company, Nexon raised $1.17 billion when it made its initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last year.  The company’s market cap is currently $7.8 billion — higher than both EA’s ($4.77 billion) and Zynga’s ($5.86 billion). The free-to-play giant is the latest publicly traded Japanese game company to report record revenues, following bumper earnings reports from DeNA and GREE, both of which reported net sales in excess of $500 million for their most recent quarters.

Read the rest on our sister site, Inside Social Games.