Will Facebook launch two new smartphones next month?

26 Jan 2011

It has been suggested that two official Facebook smartphones made by HTC are expected to debut at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Despite Facebook’s denials that it has any plans to launch hardware of any description, this is a rumour that just keeps persisting.

According to a report in London business paper City A.M., manufacturer HTC plans to unveil two Facebook-branded smartphone devices at the Mobile World Congress – the first to bear Facebook’s branding and colours.

Facebook phones may run on a tweaked version of Android

According to the report, the phones will run on a tweaked version of Google’s Android operating system and will prominently display Facebook status updates, messages and news.

The move comes just a week after Facebook revealed a ‘lite’ version of the official Facebook app for non-smartphone devices worldwide from LG, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

The new device could also feature other Facebook services like chat, messages, events, photos and video.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com