Experts question the need for a Facebook smartphone

28.05.2012
Mobile technology will play an important role for Facebook as it tries to find new sources of revenue, but building its own device doesn't make much sense since competition in the smartphone market continues to be very tough, according to analysts.

Mobile users already represent a big chunk Facebook's traffic. At the end of March, Facebook had 901 million monthly active users, and 488 million of those used its mobile products. In April, the number of mobile users surpassed 500 million.

However, Facebook's IPO has put the spotlight on the company's earnings and the uphill battle it may have to monetize its user base. That is especially true in the mobile market, where today it has almost no revenue, according to market research company CCS Insight.

To improve its fortunes, the social networking giant is planning to release a smartphone by next year and has picked up former Apple engineers to help with the effort, according to a story in the New York Times Sunday.

Facebook has not responded to queries about the report.

"I question whether Facebook needs to make its own hardware. Google needed to extend search across mobile devices with Android, whereas Facebook already has a huge amount of engagements on mobile," said Geoff Blaber, who leads mobile device software research at CCS Insight.