We've been hearing for a while now that smartphones powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor will show up at Mobile World Congress, but today the company revealed when we'll be able to get the first quad-core phones in our hot little hands. During NVIDIA's yearly earnings report, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang revealed that his company expects to ship Tegra 3-powered "superphones" this quarter. The exec also confirmed that the quad-core devices will be announced at MWC later this month. The full statement reads as follows:

"This quarter we are expecting to ship Tegra 3 based superphones. At Mobile World Congress is when we expect to announce these devices, and we expect to announce and ship them this quarter."

NVIDIA also revealed during the same report that its integrated 3G/LTE system-on-chip will begin hitting devices later this year. An exact timeframe for the arrival of the chips, codenamed Grey, wasn't mentioned, by Jen-Hsun said that it'll be "hopefully sooner than later."

So good news, right? Obviously there are still some details that we're missing, like exactly which handsets will begin shipping this quarter and exactly when they'll be sent out, but it's still pretty exciting to hear that we won't have to wait months for our first taste of Tegra 3 goodness in smartphone form. Now the wait for Mobile World Congress continues. Oh, and don't forget that we'll be live at MWC when it kicks off later this month, so we'll be there to cover any Tegra 3-powered phones that do go announced. Stay tuned!

Via The Verge, NVIDIA