Social network giant Facebook and Taiwanese manufacturer of mobile phones HTC have joined hands to present their joint smartphone in the middle of 2013, reports Bloomberg, citing its anonymous sources.

As per reports the device, which will use a modified version of Android operating system, was initially scheduled for launch by the end of 2012, but it has now been postponed to give HTC some more time to finish work on other devices. Taiwanese company produces smartphones running Android and Windows Phone mobile OS.

The modified Android OS as reported will be on the lines of as used in Amazon Kindle Fire giving FB a freedom to easily integrate its apps.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook as of now has two priority projects in the field of mobile devices: first is a smartphone under its own brand and completion of an application for iPhone. For executing the latter task, social network has hired former Apple engineers.

News about some Apple developers moving to Facebook became known in May 2012, but then it was announced that they will be working on a smartphone, and not on social networking app for iPhone.

It is also being said that Facebook employs several people who had been involved in the development of operating system Palm OS.

Social Network has not directly confirmed the plan to launch its own mobile device. When asked about their intentions in this field, Facebook in a statement told Bloomberg that they believe the deep integration with social services is beneficial to any mobile device and they are working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.

Presently, Facebook has a subscriber base of about 900 million users. More than half of them use mobile devices while surfing the social network. Facebook has a mobile version, as well as apps for all the popular mobile platforms. In 2012, the social network started showing ads to its mobile users.

HTC in the Q1 of 2012 held 4.8 percent of smartphone market, down from 8.9 in the previous quarter, as per estimates by IDC. Taiwanese manufacturer has released several devices with single-click access to Facebook – in particular, HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa.

Facebook is planning to release a smartphone next year which will be manufactured by HTC running a modified version of Android OS. (Image credit techhog)

Related Stories: