Bangalore: After search giant Google became a hardware company it is Facebook’s turn to come up with a smartphone. Recent reports indicate that Facebook is working hard to come up with a smartphone by next year. Mark Zuckerberg has hired a dozen ex Apple employees who had worked on the iPhone and the iPad. He is also trying hard to understand the intricacies of smartphone functions, claims an ex Apple employee.

This is not Facebook’s first attempt at coming up with their own smartphone. In 2010 TechCrunch had reported that Facebook was developing a smartphone. The project was later scrapped because Facebook realized the difficulties involved, said people who had worked on the project. In November 2011 All Things D reported that Facebook was working with HTC to come up with a smartphone with Facebook at its core in an effort code-named "Buffy"

Facebook has not confirmed any of these reports but has given a general statement to All Things D saying "We're working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers." Even though Facebook has not announced anything about a smartphone, their recent move of buying Instagram, coming up with an app store and a messenger app indicate that they might soon go the Google way and churn out a smartphone.

Facebook also needs to take advantage of the shift in users accessing networking sites through smartphones instead of computers. Facebook’s lack at being able to monetize on this shift was evident in its IPO disaster. “Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms," reported NYT.