Facebook is reportedly developing a smartphone in collaboration with HTC, a move that could position the social network to grab a bigger piece of the application market.

While Facebook has 350 million active mobile users and its mobile applications are popular, the social network?s role in mobile is still limited. A Facebook smartphone could reflect a significant shift in the social network?s strategy to play a bigger role in mobile going forward.

?Facebook has the opportunity to be the fourth major app store, along with Apple's, Google's and Amazon's,? said Daniel Ruby, director of online marketing for Localytics, Cambridge, MA.

?If they can achieve distribution ? either through their own phones or by getting the Facebook app ecosystem into Android the way Amazon has ? then they've suddenly got a whole lot more power in the mobile world,? he said.

Deep integration
A Facebook/HTC phone, which might not be available for some time, would deeply integrate the social network platform into the phone. The phone, which is code named ?Buffy,? will reportedly run on a modified version of Android and support HTML5.

If Facebook can create a robust and unique user experience for such a smartphone, it could be a stronger competitor in the mobile space.

?Facebook on mobile isn't really the platform it is on the Web ? their app experience doesn't really translate as well in their current mobile incarnation, unless it's a partner with a native app ? like Spotify, which launches from Facebook into the native Spotify app,? Mr. Ruby said.

?Making themselves the central platform and provider of apps, like Amazon has done with the Fire, blurs the line between the Facebook experience and the mobile experience,? he said. ?They want the kind of distribution and power that Apple has with the App Store.?

One of the challenges Facebook has faced in mobile is that its app is just one of many apps on a user?s phone.

A phone that makes Facebook a core offering could insure that Facebook plays a bigger role in the consumer?s mobile experience. 

?The iPhone has such an established market share, and Facebook is already available on every mobile OS, but if Facebook can make their app marketplace run natively on Buffy, it could signify a new mobile app distribution mechanism to compete with the App Store, Android Marketplace and Amazon app store,? Mr. Ruby said.

Facebook would most likely need to gain a wide distribution for the phone or look for ways to integrate its platform into other Android in order for the strategy to be successful. 

?Will a single Facebook phone be enough, or do they need to take the Android tact and create a range of handsets with a range of price points?? Mr. Ruby said.

?Is a Facebook phone a testing ground for deeper Facebook app store integration into more stock Android? ? I honestly don't know,? he said.

In the end, the success of a Facebook smartphone will depend on its ability to create a strong experience for mobile users.

?Facebook's native apps for iOS and Android are excellent; I'm not sure people will feel they're missing out on the Facebook experience, despite the hobbled Facebook app experience,? Mr. Ruby said. ?If it's done right, even as a heavily-modified Android build ? like the Fire ? users can have a unique experience.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York