Facebook revealed on Wednesday that more than 100m people use the social network on their mobiles every month. That’s around a quarter of their total membership.
As seems to be the norm for Facebook at the moment, even with such big numbers, the growth rate is huge – in September it had 65m mobile users. That suggests the number is likely to double annually.
“We work with every major device manufacturer and many operators to ensure that we can provide the best possible mobile experience across the thousands of different devices, mobile operating systems and carriers you rely on,” wrote Chamath Palihapitiya on Facebook’s blog. (Chamath is apparently the VP responsible for “user growth, mobile and international”; I bet he’s in line for a good bonus.)
Subscribers to more than 80 operators in 32 countries can update their Facebook page via text message. In the UK, Facebook is by some distance the most popular mobile internet site with 5m monthly uniques, according to the GSMA.
Like most operators and half of the tech world, Facebook will be in Barcelona next week for the wireless industry’s annual love-in, Mobile World Congress.
I spoke to Christian Lindholm, director at Fjord, a mobile design agency that’s worked with Nokia and the BBC, earlier this week to hear his predictions for MWC. Along with excitement around iPad apps, a plethora of Android devices and the car as computing platform, Fjord reckons Facebook’s location-aware services will be big news this year.
But Mr Lindholm also made a bolder prediction – that Facebook will produce its own mobile handset in the not-too-distant future.
“As a player with a ubiquitous global phonebook and the multimodal communication platform and applications platform that Facebook provides, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t move into phones in a couple of years,” he says.
Facebook could easily follow the path blazed by Google, who somehow managed to convince most of the tech world that there was a material difference between Nexus One and all the other Android handsets HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker, has built.
And Facebook’s user numbers – already around 400m and targeting 1bn – mean they’d only need to convince a small percentage to buy their phone to become the size of a small UK operator.
“It will require evolution in their user numbers to make it an attractive case,” says Mr Lindholm. “But the numbers are so large and in these high-value handsets the profits are also enormous.”
He calls it a “fascinating thought experiment” – and in all likelihood that’s as far as it will go. Given so many operators and handset makers are already incorporating Facebook services, why would it need to go to the expense and risk of making its own phone? INQ, allied to Hutchison’s Three network, has been making handsets tuned for Facebook and Twitter for years.
On the other hand, the lock-in factor, the convenience of importing what is already a living contacts book, and the greenfield potential for mobile advertising all lend the idea plausibility.
With Google coming after Facebook so squarely with Buzz, a buffer against a more “social” Android could make sense – just as Google’s mobile efforts parallel its increasing rivalry with Apple.
Would you buy a Facebook phone? Tell us in the comments.
