Facebook, the social network titan, is foraying into smartphone making, as per new reports. A few unnamed sources and some Facebook employees have confirmed the news to New York Times.

The company just went public a week back and the reaction from the market was not much impressive. Also, Facebook launched its own mobile app store just few days back. Now, the latest buzz is that the company is entering the mobile device market and planning to release the smartphone by next year.

This is, however, approximately the third time that the social media giant has come in news for smartphone making. In 2010, some reports suggested that Facebook was "secretly" building a smartphone but the project got dissolved soon. Another website AllThingsD reported that Facebook is again planning to launch a smartphone and this time they had partnered with HTC.

The latest report suggests that the company has already hired a number of former Apple software and hardware engineers who had hand-on experience to work on the iPhone and iPad.

A spokeswoman for Facebook, however, declined to comment to a BBC reporter saying that the company does not comment on speculation. But later in a written statement the company mentioned that "Our mobile strategy is simple: we think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social."

"We're working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world," the statement adds.