Zuck Meets With Samsung to Discuss Mobile Partnerships

Jeff Weisbein -

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Samsung today to discuss potential partnerships that would boost advertising sales from mobile devices, according to a report by Bloomberg.  In addition to discussing partnerships, Samsung’s President Shin Jong Kyun also spoke about the state of the tech industry.  Facebook really wants its users to use more of its mobile products and services, and Samsung being the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, may be just the right company to help.

In April, Zuckerberg and Co. presented Facebook Home, an app for Android smartphones which made it easier for users to access social-networking features such as friends’ photos, messages, and status updates.  While Facebook Home looks cool, the app, which replaces default Android home screen with its own launcher, has received poor reviews in the Google Play store.  The current rating for Facebook Home is 2.4 stars out of 5.  Meanwhile, the HTC First, the “Facebook Phone,” hasn’t done much at all in terms of sales either.

With somewhere in the range of 1 to 5 million downloads in the last 30 days, Home certainly hasn’t moved the needle I’m sure Facebook hoped it would.  So what could potential partnerships mean?  We speculated that Facebook Home could be used to gauge the interest of a real Facebook Phone, but it seems that the disappointing adoption and usage of Home thus far wouldn’t make attempting a dedicated Facebook Phone with a Facebook OS all that appealing to try.  Plus, Zuck has been pretty clear that Facebook isn’t interested in doing hardware.  But I guess anything is possible.

Despite Facebook’s troubles with Home, its other apps such as the traditional Facebook app and Facebook Messenger are very popular and widely used.  Perhaps getting them pre-installed on Samsung devices would be a benefit?  After all, Zuck did say that he wanted to invest in products that will reward investors who had been disappointed by the 37 percent slump since the initial public offering back in May 2012.