Once again trailing Samsung, HTC has reportedly started sending out invites for a simultaneous London – New York press event on March 25, thus confirming the announcement date of the company’s next-generation flagship.

That makes next week’s Mobile World Congress Galaxy S5’s one-man show, unless Sony crashes the party with its Xperia Z1 follow-up/rehash, codenamed “Sirius” and expected to go official as Xperia Z2.

As for HTC One’s sequel, credible rumormongers have it pegged as a 5-inch 1,080p device powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 2 or 3 GB RAM. A Quad HD, otherwise known as 2K, display was for a while in the cards, but ultimately HTC doesn’t look ready to up the ante so drastically.

Based on fairly credible leaked pictures, the “M8”, whose market name might be One Plus or One Two, resembles its predecessor quite a lot. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as everyone appreciated the 4.7-incher’s sleek, sturdy aluminum unibody.

A dual-camera sensor should also be added in the hardware mix, along with a beefier battery, whereas Android 4.4 KitKat is undoubtedly to run the software show.

The invitation for March 25’s gathering(s) is pretty straightforward and reveals little else than the event’s date, however we expect the official teasers to come tumbling down over the following weeks. Stay tuned and we’ll be sure to update you on further developments.

Via [The Verge]