World of Warcraft subscriber base sheds 7%

In August, Activision Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft subscriber numbers had dipped to 11.1 million during its quarter ending on June 30. Those numbers again declined in the company's following fiscal quarter.

During an investor conference call yesterday, Blizzard president and CEO Michael Morhaime revealed that World of Warcraft's subscriber count now sits at 10.3 million active users. This represents a 7.3 percent decline for the quarter ending on September 30.

Speaking to the decline, Morhaime attributed the largest chunk of losses to the Eastern market. "The majority of the declines were in the East," the Blizzard executive said. "China still represents more than half of our global player base, and historically, December has been a very good month for subscriber trends."

As for how Blizzard plans to combat the dropping subscription number, Morhaime said, "We have a number of initiatives planned, we plan to be very aggressive in terms of our marketing promotions."

Blizzard announced the latest World of Warcraft expansion, the Asian-inspired Mists of Pandaria, at last month's BlizzCon. The company is also set to launch World of Warcraft in Brazil on December 6.