Taiwanese smartphone maker AsusTek Computer is expected to launch its next-generation Asus ZenFone 4 Series of smartphones in May. Reliable sources from the firm's handset supply chain said that the company also intends to ship more than 20 million smartphone units in 2017.

According to Digitimes, the sources claimed that the ZenFone 4 series' hardware specifications will be higher than those of its existing ZenFone 3 smartphones. They also estimated that Asus posted a 14.6 percent decline in the ZenFone-series smartphone shipments to around 17.5 million units in 2016 from 20.5 million units in 2015.

Asus' struggling smartphone business unit also registered losses in its full-year 2016 results as the profits generated from high sales in the fourth quarter were not enough to cover for losses posted in the first three quarters.

However, the company is upbeat about its profitability prospects for 2017. The scheduled launching of the ZenFone 3 Zoom model in February, as well as the planned release of the ZenFone AR model and the ZenFone 4 family in the second quarter are expected to boost its shipments and earnings for the year.

The ZenFone 3 Zoom and ZenFone AR models were launched by the company at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 in Las Vegas in January. The AR is touted to be the first smartphone in the world to be both Tango and Daydream-ready, while the Zoom features a large 5,000- milliampere-hour (mAh) battery and a dual-camera system.

Meanwhile, the specifications of the possible first model to be released from the Zenfone 4 series were spotted on the Chinese certification website TENAA. The phone with the codename ASUS_X00GD features a 5.2-inch high-definition (1280x720 pixels) screen, an Android Nougat operating system, and an octa-core processor clocked at 1.5 gigaHertz (GHz).

The phone weighs 169.5 grams and measures 149.5 x 73.7 x 8.85 mm. It has three random accessories memory (RAM) options, namely, 2 GB, 3 GB, and 4 GB, as well as three internal memory options, namely, 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB, all of which are expandable up to 32 GB using a microSD card. It also has several sensors, including Gravity sensor, proximity sensor, and light sensor.

Watch out for the official launching of the Asus ZenFone 4 Series smartphones in May.