Taiwan’s HTC Corp almost tripled their first-quarter earnings because of a strong demand for handsets, especially those that run on Android. The company reported on Friday that its profits were T$14.83 billion, when the forecast for profits was only T$12.99 billion.

Bonnie Chang, and analyst for Yuanta Securities in Hong Kong said, “That its first would be above expectations was well foreseen, Q1 seasonality was better than expected. For the second quarter everyone is expecting revenue sequential growth in the high teens to 20%, shipments will be strong and average selling prices are holding up pretty well”.

A growing demand for phones that run on Google’s Android in 2011 will help companies that are betting on the platform like HTC and Samsung Electronics to do well in sales. According a research firm called Gartner, smart phone sales are expected to go up by 58% this year and 35% next year.

The company’s shares went up toT$1,220 on April 7, which more than tripled from April 6 of 2010 when it was at a price of just T$360.5. Consolidated sales for the month of March got up to T$37 billion, and revenues for the first quarter reached T4104.2 billion for the company.