WhatsApp to stop working on older iPhones and Androids

Starting 31 December, the popular messaging app will no longer support 49 older smartphones, including two iPhones and seven Samsung Galaxy models.

Affected users will be alerted before WhatsApp stops supporting their operating system. The company said it would also send several reminders to users to upgrade.

As of 31 December, WhatsApp will only support Androids running OS 4.1 and newer, iPhones running iOS 12 and newer, and phones running on Linux KaiOS 2.5.0 and newer.

It means that users with smartphones that cannot be updated to a required operating system will have to upgrade their devices to keep using WhatsApp.

The messaging app, which has over 2 billion active users worldwide, will stop working on 49 phone models it has so far supported. These include iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c models, seven Samsung Galaxy phones released in 2013 and earlier, and several Huawei, LG, and Sony Xperia phones, among others.

WhatsApp said it regularly reviews which operating systems to support and to make updates. It said it decides based on which devices and software are the oldest and have the fewest number of people still using them.

“These devices also might not have the latest security updates, or might lack the functionality required to run WhatsApp,” the platform said.

In October, WhatsApp stopped supporting iPhones using iOS 11 and older software.