Bad news for fans of Windows Phones, as Microsoft may kill its Lumia lineup of devices by the end of 2016. According to a report by WinBeta, a Microsoft employee has said that the company is planning to "end sales" of the phone in December 2016. It isn’t exactly sure what the person meant by saying “end sales,” but it is being speculated that Microsoft will stop production of the range in December. Further, the report also notes that Microsoft has been cutting prices and offering discounts on its range of smartphones, possibly in an attempt to sell its remaining stock.
It is possible that the company is only ending the Lumia range so that it can introduce a new lineup of phones, possibly the oft-rumoured Surface Phone. The device has been talked about for years, and last year, Chris Capossela, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Microsoft had said that the company was working on a “breakthrough” phone, which would be the "spiritual equivalent" of the Surface. He had also said that the device would take time to build.
Latest rumours suggest that the Surface Phone might be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 SoC. Earlier this year, Microsoft had reportedly listed MSM8998 as one of the chipsets that would support Windows 10 Mobile and it’s speculated that this might be the model name for the Snapdragon 830 SoC. Rumours suggest that Qualcomm’s next flagship chipset would be able to support up to 8GB of RAM, and would be manufactured using the 10nm process.