WhatsApp will stop working on all phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone or Windows Mobile software from Tuesday 31 December, the company has confirmed.
Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, said this is because it no longer actively develops for Windows mobile platforms.
Users of these Microsoft operating systems have not been able to create new WhatsApp accounts since earlier this year.
The move comes after Microsoft announced plans to finally kill off its phone software and urged customers to switch to an iPhone or Android phone in January.
Every year the messaging app, which launched in 2009, removes support for devices that ‘don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future’.
It removed support for older Windows-based phones at the beginning of 2018, at the same time as it stopped supporting all BlackBerry OS devices.
In 2020, WhatsApp will remove support for some older Apple and Android devices.
Android versions 2.3.7 and older, as well as iOS 8 and older will lose support for the messaging service on February 1, 2020.
Android 2.3.7 was known as Gingerbread and launched in 2010. It is only running on about 0.3 percent of Android devices, according to Google.
According to Apple only 7 percent of devices are running a version of its mobile operating system older than iOS 12 – which was released in 2018.
A number of users have taken to social media to express concern at the fact their devices will no longer be able to run WhatsApp.Di
