Acer, the world’s third-largest PC-maker, has said that one of its forthcoming smartphones will be based on Google’s Android platform. Aymar de Lencquesaing, speaking at a Reuters event this week, said that it was planning to launch ten phones this year and was in talks with some 40 mobile operators to offer the devices. “We’re in discussions with all of them. To date none of them has said ‘thanks, but no thanks, and never come back,'” he said. The Android phone will be the only one not based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform.

Acer effectively entered the smartphone space via its acquisition last year of Taiwanese device-maker Eten Information Systems, and unveiled its first phones at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February. It announced further devices at the CeBIT trade fair in March. The firm joins a host of rival PC makers that are understood to be planning a move into smartphones, including Asustek, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell. According to Gartner figures published this week, smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units in 1Q09, a 12.7 percent increase over the same period last year, and against an overall slowdown in phone sales. However, Android-based smartphones are still in their infancy with only two launched to date, the HTC Dream (better known as the T-Mobile G1) and HTC Magic. Major vendors such as Samsung, Motorola and Huawei plan to launch Android devices later this year.