Just a month after Huawei unveiled the P8 and P8 Max, rumors are already beginning to surface about the China-based tech giant working on a successor. A new report states that the company has already started working on a successor to the P8 and P8 Max, dubbed as the Huawei P9.

Huawei has released six new devices within a very short period, with three out of the six devices belonging to the company's flagship P8 line. Huawei has released the Huawei P8, P8Max and P8 Lite handsets, followed by a mid-range smartphone and two mid-range tablets. Last month, Huawei announced its flagship P8, which currently has limited availability, but continues to be rolled out across various markets. According to the new report, the company has already begun testing the Huawei P9 in China under a project codenamed IP03. Huawei had codenamed the P7 and P8 as IP01 and IP02, suggesting that the latest report could be true.

The report claims that the Huawei P9 will feature a new curved back design and fingerprint sensor on the back, similar to the fingerprint sensor located below the camera module in the Ascend Mate 7. The Huawei P9 will reportedly sport a 5.2-inch display and a 16MP camera with optical image stabilization. Huawei's upcoming smartphone will be powered by the new in-house HiSilicon Kirin 950 processor, which will be manufactured using TSMC's 16nm process and will hit the market at the end of 2015.

Given that the Kirin 950 processor will be ready only after six months or so and considering the time required by smartphone manufacturers to complete testing a product before its release, the Huawei P9 is likely to released only in 2016.