Facebook phone could be reality before end of the year

The report comes just a few days after Google finalized its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, for which it paid 12.5 billion dollars.

According to TheNew York Times, Facebook could follow in Google's footsteps by acquiring a smartphone manufacturer if its internal efforts prove fruitless. Facebook, now a public company, is under greater pressure to find other sources of revenue, analysts have suggested, and the smartphone project could offer a new stream.

This isn't the first time the social network has been associated with a mobile phone hardware project. When contacted by the newspaper, Mark Zuckerberg's company neither confirmed nor denied the rumor.