HTC, Facebook and AT&T reveal the HTC First, coming April 12th for $99, pre-orders begin today

HTC and AT&T have announced the HTC First, the first phone that comes preloaded with the new Facebook Home. Facebook unveiled Home on Thursday as a new family of apps that works as a home and lock screen on Android.

“The HTC First is the ultimate social phone,” HTC’s Peter Chou said during the launch. The new phone features LTE connectivity and a 4.3-inch display. It is powered by a Qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor and Android Jelly Bean 4.1, and comes in black, white, red and pale blue.

The First goes on sale April 12th for $99.99, with pre-orders starting today. The phone will be available for pre-order at http://www.att.com/facebookhome. Though the First starts out as an AT&T exclusive, it will coming to EE and Orange over the next few months. Facebook Home will also arrive on the Google Play store on April 12th, but it will only be available for select phones: HTC One, HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S III & S4, Galaxy Note II. In addition to HTC, Facebook is already lined up to work with several other hardware partners for its new Facebook Home program, including Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, Lenovo and Alcaltel Onetouch. CEO Mark Zuckerberg dispelled rumors that it would build its own phone or operating system, noting that a single phone model would only reach about 1-2% of its community.

Facebook sent out invites for today’s press event last week, billing it as an opportunity to see the company’s “new home on Android”. Facebook passed the billion-user mark last October and climbed to 1.06 billion monthly active users by the end of the year. In the fourth quarter of 2012, it had $1.59 billion in revenue and $0.17 earnings per share. The company also revealed last month that 400 billion Open Graph actions have been shared back to its platform. Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images