By Tarmo Virki

BARCELONA (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies said on Monday it aimed to start selling 2-3 phone models using Google's Android software platform while introducing more models next year.

Edward Chen, head of Huawei's devices unit, told Reuters in an interview the firm was also considering introducing phones using software from Symbian, the leading software platform, and from Linux foundation LiMo.

The market for software platforms on cell phones is led by Nokia's Symbian operating system, but it has lost ground over the past year to Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

Computer operating system Linux has had little success in cell phones thus far, but its role is increasing with the LiMo platform, and Google is using Linux for its Android platform.

Chen said Huawei -- which sells phones to telecom operators who sell them under their own brands -- aimed to sell 40-45 million phones in 2009, compared with 33 million last year.

Chen also said the company would introduce commercially a phone model using next generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology late this year or early next.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Dan Lalor)

China Electronics Huawei Android