WeChat for Windows Phone Discontinued by Tencent

WeChat, one of the popular IM app on Windows Phone platform has been discontinued by Tencent. The app when now opened pops up an alert saying “WeChat for Windows Phone is no longer supported”.

The alert tells the user to use Android or iOS app instead. This is done allegedly for security concerns, but most probably it’s because of declining number of Windows Phone users. The app was already in an unsupported state, but this seems to be the nail in the coffin. FIFA Mobile, Flipboard, PayPal, Shazam all have already left Windows mobile platform, and WeChat will be the latest addition to the list.

The above image translates to: “For security reasons WeChat Windows Phone no longer supports. Register with WeChat via an iOS and Andriod mobile device.”

Although WeChat has a UWP app for desktop, it’s not out for mobile yet. It’s hard to say if they’ll port UWP app to Mobile platform as if they wanted to they would’ve done months ago. On the side note, concerned Windows Phone users who value their privacy should now rather than continuing to use WeChat switch to other IM apps as WeChat had confirmed that it makes all private user data available to the Chinese government.