Hello Fairphoner,

We’re proud of everything we achieved with our first Fairphone 1 owners. Together we sourced conflict-free tin and tantalum from Congo, set up a Worker Welfare Fund with the Fairphone 1 manufacturer and showed a concrete market demand of over 60,000 people who wanted a fairer phone.



Now after supporting our Fairphone 1 for three and a half years and the Fairphone 1U for nearly two and a half years, we regret that we are ending maintenance for our first phone. This very difficult decision is primarily financial. Since the launch of the Fairphone 1, most of the original spare parts have been retired by our suppliers. While we’ve worked continuously to find new suppliers, we simply did not have enough capital to invest in the volumes required to meet demand in the year ahead. After exploring every option within our financial means, we have now reached the point where it’s impossible to support the Fairphone 1 and maintain the financial stability of the company at the same time.



For similar reasons, we’ve also decided to stop developing the upgrade to Android 4.4 for the Fairphone 1. This project has been an ongoing effort from our internal team as well as key members of the community, and we’re disappointed that we are not able to see it through to the end.



We want to be transparent about these challenging issues, but we also want to help you as best as we can. To help you keep using your phone as long as possible, we’ve collected some tips and resources on maintenance, repair and recycling on a special page for Fairphone 1 owners.



Again, thank you for your support of Fairphone and fair electronics.

