Facebook phone ‘coming next year’ from HTC

Facebook is working with mobile manufacturer HTC on its first official phone, further reports have suggested. 

The social network has previously denied that it is working on a phone but has never ruled out using a third-party to manufacture a device that has Facebook built-in at every level.

Reports from AllThingsD now suggest that a device, codenamed ‘Buffy’, will run on a revised version of Google Android, mirroring the way that Amazon has built the Kindle Fire tablet computer.

Facebook is reported to have “tweaked [Android] heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications, according to sources familiar with the project”.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor is said to be leading the project, which will build on the previous ‘Facebook phones’ that have launched with a dedicated button for access to the social network. The HTC Salsa and ChaCha are currently also joined by devices such as those made by INQ, which emphasise deep Facebook integration. Building their own phone, however, would be an unprecedented step into the challenging, low margin mobile market, confirming long-runnng rumours.

The move is seen as attractive, however, as more people in the developing world gain their first experience of the web via their mobile phone. If it is to continue growing, Facebook will need to make sure it has solid access to those markets as well as to existing ones in the developed world. Google is increasingly emphasising the Google+ rival social network, while Apple and Amazon’s rival offerings risk getting a foothold in the lucrative mobile payments market that Facebook is seeking to access via its ‘Facebook Credits’ scheme.
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