Huawei Technologies has said it will start selling its first smartphone based on the Android platform later this year.
The China-based manufacturer is the second company to confirm the launch of a handset running under Android, the open source mobile software platform developed by Google.
Last year, HTC of Taiwan was the first to market with an Android handset.
Huawei confirmed at Mobile World Congress that the smartphone would be commercially available in the third quarter of 2009.
Smartphones are expected to account for more than 24% of the global mobile phone market by 2011, and this figure is set to exceed 30% by 2012.
The Android phone operating system has already tempted the likes of ARM, Ericsson, Toshiba and Vodafone which have joined the Open Handset Alliance, an industry group set up to support the operating system./
Others who joined as the same time were: AKM Semiconductor, ASUSTek Computer, Atheros Communications, Borqs, Garmin International, Huawei Technologies, Omron, Softbank, Sony Ericsson and Teleca.