OREGON: Facebook Inc and INQ Mobile Ltd unveiled mobile phones aimed at consumers who want ready access to tools that let them stay in touch with friends on the fly.
The devices include close integration of Facebook’s services, such as wall postings and photos, with phone software, Henri Moissinac, head of mobile business for Facebook, said in an interview. The social network is working on similar devices with other handset makers, he said, without naming partners.
Facebook, the most popular social network, is using handheld devices to reach the growing number of users who access its site via smartphones. Cooperation with handset makers may help Facebook glean added insight into how people its service and generate sales from the eventual placement of mobile ads.
“For Facebook, it’s about proving not only that they have a great platform on the PC, but also bringing Facebook to the faster-growing market of mobile handsets,” Will Stofega, a program director at IDC, said in an interview. “Consumers will pay a premium. They need Facebook.”
About 40 percent of the company’s more than 500 million users log onto Facebook from wireless devices.
INQ’s new Cloud Touch and Cloud Q devices deliver Facebook multimedia posts, such as photos and video clips, directly to the phones’ home screen. They feature one-touch links to tools such as Facebook’s chat, messaging and friend lists. They also provide easy access to the social network’s location-based and calendar services.
Working with Facebook
Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, provides technical, software and marketing support to phone manufacturers, Moissinac said. In some countries, it advises phone makers on how to create marketing messages, he said. The company’s engineers also build software that hardware partners can use to tie phone functions to Facebook services.
“You can assume every company in the world is interested in working with Facebook,” Moissinac said. “We are trying to make every phone a Facebook phone.” The company isn’t developing its own hardware, he said.
The team that’s been working with mobile hardware partners “is growing very fast,” Moissinac said. He expects more “Facebook phones” by the year-end holidays.
Li Ka-Shing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., the holding company that owns INQ, is an investor in Facebook.
Facebook and London-based INQ have collaborated on phones for three years. The new INQ Cloud Touch features a 3.5-inch touch screen. INQ Cloud Q comes with a 2.6-inch screen and a Qwerty keyboard.
‘Journey’ begins
Both machines run Google Inc’s Android operating system and are designed to appeal to 18- to 35-year-old social networkers, INQ Chief Executive Officer Frank Meehan said in an interview.
Cloud Touch will become available in the UK from Carphone Warehouse Group Plc, Europe’s largest seller of phones, and from Best Buy Co in April, while Cloud Q will come out in the second half. The phones are expected to be free with a two-year service contract, Meehan said. INQ also expects to introduce a device in the US this year, Meehan said.
In the future, phones will be even more closely integrated with Facebook services, Moissinac said.
“This journey is just about to start,” Moissinac said.