People familiar with the development revealed that the popular social networking site Facebook, is working with smartphone manufacturer HTC Corp. to build its own smartphone. The smartphone is expected to release as soon as mid 2013.
Earlier the company had intended to release the device as early as the end of this year. But the date was postponed so that HTC could get more time to work on the products. Officials on the condition of anonymity said that Facebook is developing a modified operating system for the device and has also assembled a team of former Apple Inc. programmers.
Study has revealed that more than half of the Facebook users use the social networking site through mobile phones. Mark Zuckerberg the chief executive officer could use a Facebook phone with built in social networking features to woo the marketers and assuage concerns dragging on the company’s share.
Victor Anthony, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets Inc said, “Usage is shifting to mobile, and they have not been able to monetize mobile”. The social network started offering mobile ads in the month of March and hasn’t provided statistics on their impact. Facebook said that the ad growth will not keep pace with the user gains.
