Chinese mobile phone manufacturer High Tech Computer, more commonly known as HTC, is banking on Google’s Android OS to make it some serious cash in coming months.

HTC has done very well out of Google's mobile OS

Word comes via Tomshardware that HTC is expecting a significant bump in demand for Android-based devices, which it hopes to see bump its smartphone shipments by as much as 50% in the coming three months. HTC has already seen impressive figures, and those seem set to grow as the Nexus One continues to roll out, carrying HTC’s name as one of those at the core of the Android platform. Indeed, the sheer number of devices that HTC has already shipped this year is impressive, sitting in the neighbourhood of 3.3 million in the first quarter alone. Given the gradual growth in interest in Android and the hat puts the expected number of handsets to ship at around the 4.5 million mark, which is very impressive altogether.

HTC’s Cheng Hui-ming said of the numbers that the figures are indicative of the ‘growing popularity of the Android platform in Europe and the US.’ Certainly the US has seen its Android side bolstered by the vast marketing campaign for the Motorola Droid, which has resulted in general interest in Android rising, in Europe, things have been slower, but seem to be improving. Hui-ming continued to point out that the rumours surrounding the company attempting to build its own mobile OS, which had stemmed from questions about the viability of a smartphone manufacturer not maintaining its own OS, aren’t nearly as credible once these figures are taken into account.

It seems curious that so many had considered it a likelihood that HTC would be working on its own mobile OS, given its success with both Google’s Android and Microsoft’s mobile versions of Windows, and with Windows Phone 7 just around the corner. Considering the vast developer communities that have grown up around Android, launching a smartphone with a HTC-built OS could have gone very quickly wrong for the company.

The fact is that there are lessons to be learned from Palm and the fact that it was recently picked up by HP… more so for its OS than its mobile hardware.