Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and its partners HTC Corp. and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) today launched the eagerly-anticipated Facebook Phone. The device will be manufactured by HTC and sold for $99.99 at AT&T stores beginning on April 12th. Facebook says that Qualcomm Corp. (NASDAQ: QCOM), Samsung and Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) have committed to supporting the software overlay the company calls Facebook Home.
Investors will want to know how Facebook Home will make money for the company, and that’s a little sketchy right now. Today’s launch was all about feeling good.
Facebook Home runs on top of the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), which means that it will be available on a wide range of devices that currently support Android. Unlike the Kindle Fire tablets from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Facebook Home is not a fully customized version (called a “fork” in technical lingo) of Android.
By forgoing the Amazon approach, Facebook retains the ability to become any phone’s de facto operating system. Amazon’s version of Android only runs on Amazon’s tablets. Facebook then has the ability to take over the mobile advertisements that are served to a phone, any phone that runs Android and has Facebook Home loaded. That could pose a real threat to Google’s mobile ad business.
Shares of Facebook are up 2.8% following the launch party at $26.99 in a 52-week range of $17.55 to $45.00.
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