Huawei is said to be working on the successor of the Mate S, dubbed the Mate S2, which could look similar to the Nexus 6P.
Huawei launched the original Mate S in September 2015 and with high-end specs. As it has been almost a year since launch, it is likely that the company will introduce the successor of the Mate S sooner than later.
The Mate S2 was spotted at China's Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center, or TENAA, the agency that approves mobile devices for sale in China. Images from the certification agency suggest that the Mate S2 will have a very similar design to the Nexus 6P, which was manufactured by Huawei and also launched toward the end of September last year.
However, the recent leak shows that the Mate S2 is quite different from the Nexus 6P when it comes to specs. The upcoming smartphone is expected to sport a Full HD screen sized between 5.5 and 5.9 inches. The original Mate S came with a 5.5-inch display.
A Kirin 960 chipset and 4 GB of RAM are expected to power the Mate S2. It may get 16-megapixel rear-facing and 8-megapixel front-facing cameras.
A 2,700 mAh battery fuels the Mate S. However, speculations hint that the Mate S2 could come with a massive 3,500 mAh battery, which will offer significantly longer usage of the smartphone.
The original Mate S was equipped with a fingerprint sensor and offered improved security. Customers should also expect the Mate S2 to offer fingerprint scanning.
Just like the Mate S, the upcoming Mate S2 may also offer storage options of 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB. It is likely that the Mate S2 will also have a microSD card slot that can be used to expand the storage capacity of the device.
The smartphone is estimated to come running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, Huawei was a top smartphone vendor in China during Q2 2016 with a market share of 17 percent. According to another IDC report, the OEM ranked third, only after Samsung and Apple, in the list of top five smartphone vendors in the global market during the same quarter.
"With Huawei number one in China at the moment, Huawei's remaining challenge will once again be penetrating the U.S. market at the high-end to compete with both Samsung and Apple," says IDC.
Huawei is selling many of its smartphones in the U.S. The Mate S2 will be the company's high-end phone and will probably hit the U.S. soon after it is launched in China.
Huawei may launch the rumored Mate S2 during the upcoming 2016 IFA.
