Reference Auto

Facebook’s idea of a smartphone isn’t a great one. The primary reasons being: It does not have any presence in the mobile phone business, and with players remaining highly aggressive in this competitive segment, it will be difficult for Facebook to play the price game (that is, keep prices low and offer optimal features).

Moreover, if it has to compete in the premium segment, Facebook has a super competitor in the form of Apple, which will be very difficult to dislodge even in the medium to long term.

Facebook, which saw listing of its shares in Nasdaq recently, has also got its own mobile app store.

Even as Facebook’s share price is witnessing a plunge in the market recently, taking a shot into the smartphone market will mean astronomical investment with negligible returns even in the short to medium term.

Facebook is believed to have hired around six-seven former Apple engineers, who worked on the iPhone, to get its smartphone going. They will create Facebook’s own smartphone software and hardware and counter the threat Facebook is facing from Google’s mobile web segment.

As per information, the Facebook smartphone could be released within a year. The planned rollout could force internet search leader Google to redraw its plan and foray into this new segment. Google now has strong presence in hardware via its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility recently.

This is Facebook’s second attempt at entering the smartphone market. The first fling in 2010 was junked when Facebook realised the difficulty it would face turning from a software developer to a hardware maker.

Now, it is cooperating with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC for a model termed ‘Buffy’, which is yet to be fully developed.

Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has gone in depth into exploring its Buffy and is also contemplating other options as well. It has its new wing of hardware makers, which has got a boost after the induction of a few ex-Apple engineers.

The smartphone market is ruled by Apple, which has integrated Twitter into iOS. Devices running on Android, a mobile operating system created by Google, will be Facebook’s main advertising rival on the web.

Facebook is keeping the smartphone project under wraps for now. It isn’t advertising for vacancies. Rather, it has opted for head hunting.

Facebook is making the smartphone as it is yet to make it big from the small screen even though a big number of mobile phone users are logged onto social networking sites most of the time.

Facebook will surely give a further fillip to its social networking presence with a smartphone but it may not be a pragmatic move as Facebook not only needs astronomical funds but also has to wait for long for its smartphone to be accepted and used by the people, and so, this idea does not seem to be a good one.