Huawei has plans to release an Ascend P7 smartphone in April of 2014, according to GSM Arena. The handset will be a major upgrade to the Ascend P6, announced in June 2013.

The Ascend P7 is said to feature a 5-inch 1080p TFT LCD display, quad-core 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage with expandable memory through a microSD card slot. The design of the device will be made of "exquisite materials", but reportedly won't look too different from the Ascend P6, likely sticking with the metal chassis.

Read: Huawei Ascend P6 review

Furthermore, the handset is said to feature a 13-megapixel rear-camera, 8-megapixel front-camera, LTE chip, 2460mAh battery, and some version of Android with Huawei's EmotionUI 2.0 thrown on top.

Photos of the handset haven't been leaked.

There's no word on pricing or carrier availability, and given it's an unconfirmed leak, we caution taking an extra dose of salt with this rumour.

With Huawei's recent trouble in the US, after the US government claimed the company may pose a national security risk over China spying, we don't suspect the handset hitting the country. Huawei has strongly denied claims of spying, telling doubters to "shut up", but why would they go where they're not wanted by the government?

Thanks to growth in Asia and Europe, Huawei overtook LG as the third biggest-selling smartphone maker worldwide during the third quarter of 2013, with 5.1 per cent marketshare according to Strategy Analytics data.

We suspect both Asia and Europe will be heavily targeted by the Ascend P7 if it indeed comes to market in April of next year.