Zuckerberg: Facebook Building a Phone Wouldn't Make Sense

From Tom's Hardware: We've been hearing talk of a Facebook-branded phone for months. Most recently, Bloomberg cited 'people with knowledge of the matter' that said Facebook and HTC were preparing to launch a phone in mid-2013. However, today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has shot down reports of a Facebook smartphone, claiming it wouldn't make any sense for the social network to produce a phone.

SlashGear reports that Zuckerberg's remarks were made during an earnings call yesterday. The 28-year-old responded to questions about the possibility of Facebook building their own phone with the following statement:

"There are lots of things that you can build in other operating systems as well that aren't really building out a whole phone, which I think really wouldn't make much sense for us to do," Zuckerberg said. "We want to support a development ecosystem where other apps can build on top of Facebook."

The fact that Zuckerberg referenced supporting developers indicates that the company is more interested in working with developers on applications built for Facebook. However, the wording of Zuckerberg's statement also leaves the company a bit of wiggle room if it is (or should it ever) decide to produce its own phone. You see, Zuckerberg has said it wouldn't make sense for Facebook to build a phone, but he hasn't said anything about partnering with a third party to build a phone, has he?

HTC refused to comment on this week's rumor that the two companies were working together on a phone. Facebook's statement on the matter revealed the companies commitment to work with 'the entire mobile industry' on its mobile strategy.

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