Facebook’s phone will-they won’t-they saga took another turn as well. Mark Zuckerberg, the company founder, told the assembled media that manufacturing their own phone “really wouldn’t make much sense” and instead they’ll continue to work with Apple to improve Facebook integration on iOS devices.
The news, straight from the horse’s mouth, came just a day after the Daily Telegraph cited sources that claimed Facebook was working together with technology firm HTC to create a “Facebook phone”. The Telegraph doesn’t have any concrete quotes and it’s likely to be a similar story to one they released a few months back claiming the same thing. A Sydney Morning News article also claimed the phone is upon us and went further by stating a phone could be released as early as mid-2013.
Gaming, which is one of Facebook’s most popular verticals, has been “essentially flat” for the past two months according to CFO David Ebersman with the $192 million in payments staying pretty much static. He did state that their gaming was getting even bigger on the mobile platform and that this is becoming extremely tricky to monetize.
When Google floated back in 2004 it made $796 m in ad revenue in the quarter following the IPO – a number lower than Facebook’s but a rise of 109 percent is higher. The problem is likely to stem from Facebook not really possessing a mobile advertising program and until they do that it’ll be difficult for them to get anywhere near the other giants of this space.