Andre Yoskowitz
28 Jul 2012 12:59
During his company's first public earnings conference call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg killed the rumor that the social network is building a smartphone.
However, Zuckerberg may have left the door slight ajar, as he did not deny that any third-party OEM may be building one.
Over the past few month, major news outlets have reported on a Facebook-branded phone coming within months. Most cited HTC as the OEM, and pointed to early 2013 for launch.
Zuckerberg had this to say of the rumors, however: "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. We want to support a development ecosystem where other apps can build on top of Facebook."
The company will move forward with supporting developers to create applications built around Facebook.
Facebook's stock fell heavily after the earnings report, and is now at $24 per share, down almost 50 percent from its peak on IPO day.