Facebook
Facebook Phone Due for Launch on January 15?Reuters

Facebook Inc is staging an event at its corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California on Tuesday, fuelling reports that the mythical Facebook phone might be unveiled. 

The social networking giant is reportedly holding another event in London that day. Media reports speculate that the special event might see the debut of the much-rumoured Facebook phone, which will supposedly be developed by Taiwan's HTC.  

Citing several sources, TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler on Sunday said, "Multiple sources have told us that they expect some sort of Facebook Phone to be on display on Tuesday". He also maintained that "Now for the caveats (and they're important). It's not entirely clear if this will be an actual piece of Facebook branded hardware or if they will simply use hardware from a phone maker to show off some sort of new Facebook OS for mobile. That is to say, it could very well be that the "Facebook Phone" is more about a Facebook OS running on a phone (or a few phones)."

It was earlier reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied the development of any such phone saying it would be a wrong strategy for the company. Siegler stated that despite the founder's dismissal of a phone in the making, there exists a possibility considering the opportunities in emerging markets for global technology firms.

"Complicating matters is all the chatter that Facebook has both publicly and privately told partners such as Google and Apple that they had no intention to build their own phones. Again, maybe it's semantics. Or maybe Facebook simply changed their minds. Or maybe this phone/OS isn't meant to compete head-on with the iPhone and the Android phones that Google focuses on. Perhaps this is meant solely for emerging markets," Siegler wrote.

The speculation of the Facebook phone is rife because of many reasons, one being the event itself. The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company does not call for a press meet or event unless it has something incredibly new to offer. Facebook's mysterious invite for the press event, which read "Come and see what we're building", indicated that something new was up its sleeve.