Motorola is expected to unveil its first smartphones this week running the Android platform, a launch considered key to the company’s future success following a serious decline in its handset fortunes. The vendor’s CEO of its mobile devices division, Sanjay Jha, is keynote speaker at a Mobilize event on Thursday in San Francisco, prompting widespread belief that he will use the occasion to launch the new portfolio of products. Also keynoting is Cole Brodman, CTO of T-Mobile USA, suggesting that the operator may be involved in Motorola’s first foray into the Google-backed Android world.

Reuters notes that shares of the one-time market leader, now ranked fourth in global handset sales, jumped 11 percent last week on investor hopes that the new phones could generate enough excitement to make Motorola’s bat-wing logo famous again. It recently said it is on track to launch two Android-based phones in time for the holiday season and plans to release more in the first quarter of 2010. Speaking on the company’s 2Q09 earnings call in July, Jha claimed the new devices “will get us back in the game in smartphones.” Significantly, Jha also said at the time that Motorola has already scored deals with two major US mobile operators. T-Mobile USA is now believed to be one of the operators, but speculation continues as to the identity of the second.