T-Mobile USA rolled out the first Google phone last year, but it looks like that device soon will have some company.

Sprint Nextel reportedly will be among those offering the new phones utilizing the Google Android operating system.

Phil Goldstein of Fierce Wireless reports that Won-Pyo Hong, Samsung's executive vice president of global product strategy for mobile phones, said his company will have new Android phones that would arrive in the United States in the second half of the year.

"Samsung has confirmed that Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA will launch the first Samsung phones in the United States based on Google's Android platform," according to the Fierce report. "The confirmation, made by a Samsung executive at the International CTIA Wireless 2009 show in Las Vegas, puts to rest speculation about Samsung's Android plans for the near future."

This is a big deal.

One of the primary factors driving all of the buzz-fueled momentum for Apple's iPhone, offered exclusively in the U.S. through AT&T, is the app store. Consumers can download programs that make their iPhones more fun and useful.

The New York Times offers this piece today about the "iPhone Gold Rush" triggered by app-happy consumers and the programmers who help them.

The voice minutes that allow consumers to talk on their mobile phones, well, those essentially have become a commodity. Wireless carriers such as Sprint increasingly will depend on consumers going gaga over Internet surfing and other data services via their mobile phones.

Steve Jobs already granted exclusive iPhone rights to AT&T so that has left rivals scrambling and hoping that consumers will go gaga over the Google phone.

It looks promising so far.

Tricia Duryee at Moconews reports that the first version of the Google phone, T-Mobile's G1, showed impressive iPhone-like momentum with its own foray into the world of applications.

"T-Mobile G1 customers have each downloaded more than 40 applications from the Android Market," Duryee wrote. "If estimates are close to being correct—and about 1 million G1’s have been sold to date—that could translate into about 40 million downloads total. That’s a fraction of the 500 million downloads achieved on the iPhone, however, the iPhone has more users and has been offering downloads for a longer period of time. In addition, four out of five G1 customers, commonly download applications at least once a week."

Duryee also noted that T-Mobile's experience is that customers using the GI "use data services 50 times more than the average voice-centric phone user; and 80 percent of T-Mobile G1 customers browse the web on a daily basis"