The coming summer is expected to witness the rise of next-generation smartphones powered by the Android mobile OS.

It was recently disclosed by a Gartner report that Android has surfaced as the fastest growing smartphone platform in the first quarter of 2011, and there is a good chance of this trend continuing through the rest of the summer.

At least eight new smartphones are likely to be introduced by the top-four US carriers during the second quarter of 2011, and an additional six more smartphone are rumored to be hitting the market during the same time-frame.

T-Mobile alone has announced three new Android-powered smartphones in rapid succession.

The company kicked off the week by announcing June 15 as the possible release date of the HTC Sensation 4G, which was followed by yesterday’s announcement of the Samsung Gravity Smart, CNET reports.

Meanwhile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have joined forces with a handful of handset makers including HTC, Motorola and Samsung to come up with their own offering of Android phones.

Although Apple's iPhone is still the single most popular smartphone, the Android OS has recently become the most popular mobile OS both for consumers and developers.