Confirming this bad news in a post over its official blog, the Facebook-owned company has stated that it will pull the plug on several mobile platforms that include BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8.0 and some older platforms from December 31, 2017.

"This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend

upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp," the social-networking application WhatsApp stated on its blog.

WhatsApp first announced about these outdated mobile platforms in year 2016. The company had said that it will stop supporting these mobile platforms. However, it later updated its blog confirming that it would extend its deadline to

June 30, 2017. This deadline was further extended to December 31, 2017.

WhatsApp has also revealed that the messaging app will stop supporting phones running Nokia S40 operating system from December 31, 2018. However, the app will continue working on mobile phones running Android 2.3.7 and older (Gingerbread) till February 1, 2020.

The messaging app was acquired by American social-networking company 'Facebook' in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion. By February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of over one billion, making it the most popular messaging application at that time.

Apart from messaging service, WhatsApp recently launched voice over service that allows users to make voice calls as well as video calls which enable the company to provide customer services on large scale.