There have been a ton of rumors that Facebook is aiming to be more like Apple and launch its own smartphone. The rumor mill has been grinding for months that the company has been working on such a project. Earlier this week, the rumors that Facebook was working on such a phone with HTC resurfaced once again.
However, it looks like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have put a halt to all these phone stories. ABCNews.com reports that during Facebook's first financial conference call with analysts today, Zuckerberg stated, "There are a lot of things you can build in other operating systems as well that aren’t really taking, that aren’t really like building out a whole phone, which wouldn’t make much sense for us to do."
Zuckerberg's answer does leave some room for a partnership with another company to make a smartphone with some Facebook features. Indeed, HTC did try to launch an Android-based smartphone with a dedicated Facebook button in 2011. The phone, which was called the HTC Stratus in the US, was a sales failure for its wireless carrier AT&T and is no longer available from that company.
It's more likely that Facebook simply doesn't see the need for getting into the hardware business, at least not at the moment.
Source: ABCNews.com
7 Comments - Add comment