Washington, May 28 : Facebook may launch its first-ever smartphone by next year, a new report has revealed.

According to Stuff. co. nz, Facebook has sought engineers to work on building hardware for a Facebook smartphone, which would mark the social network''s third attempt to develop a smartphone, the report cited.

The news comes as search engine giant Google completed the acquisition of Motorola Mobility for 12.5 billion dollars earlier this week, a move that could help Facebook counter that with its own foray into the smartphone hardware business.

Rumors have been rife about a Facebook phone for the past few years. Although Facebook was reportedly first working on a smartphone in 2010, sources said the initiative stopped due to development complications.

Meanwhile, it has also emerged that Facebook and manufacturer HTC were working together to develop a mobile device under the code name "Buffy", which is still under development. (ANI)