San Francisco, Dec 29 (IANS): Android co-creator Andy Rubin's Essential Phone has become unavailable and the company has said it won't replenish the stocks, thus, effectively discontinuing the smartphone.

"We are sold out of Essential Phone on essential.com and won't be adding any new inventory. We are now hard at work on our next mobile product and will continue to sell accessories and provide speedy software updates and customer support to our existing community," 9to5Google quoted the company as saying late on Friday.

The Essential Phone switched over to "Out of Stock" on the Essential Shop last week in all colour options.

It is now mostly gone at Amazon too, outside of some resellers trying to get rid of remaining devices, with no Prime shipping available, the Droid Life reported.

Owners of the Essential Phone would, however, continue receiving security and firmware updates in future.

The company's flagship Essential Phone, also known as PH-1 has had a rocky start. Even after expanding into new markets, the phone's sales remained underwhelming and resulted in layoffs and rumours that the firm would be sold.

Earlier, reports suggested the device would be updated to at least Android Q Operating System (OS).

Currently, it still holds the record for one of the fastest third-party major Android updates with its Pie over the air (OTA) just hours after the Google Pixel.