Facebook's Zuckerberg: "We're Not Going To Build A Phone"
Facebook is a mobile company, but stop asking Mark Zuckerberg about the phone thing already.
On its fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, the Facebook CEO and founder may have said the word "mobile" 1.59 billion times, but that legendary Facebook phone is just a fairy tale. "People keep on asking if we're going to build a phone," said Zuckerberg. "We're not going to build a phone."
Phone users in the U.S. now can speak to each other directly for free through Facebook's Messenger app, an extension of a recent test rollout conducted in Canada. Voice carriers have little to fear just yet, said Andreas Scherer, managing partner at Salto Partners. However, "the world largest social media platform could easily become the world largest wireless provider." Facebook rolled out free voice calling in the U.S. through the Facebook Messenger app for iPhone on Wednesday -- with little fanfare or formality.
There was no grand announcement -- media outlets noticed the new development and after inquiries, Facebook said it was an extension of the VoIP in Messenger test it launched earlier this year in Canada.
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