Absent from this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the Huawei P9 smartphone will instead be unveiled April 6, 2016, at a special event in London, UK.

As with the Huawei P8, Huawei chose not to announce P9 at Mobile World Congress, instead launching it at a separate London event.

Invites recently sent by Huawei indicate that the P9 will launch on April 9. The invites use the hashtag "#OO" as well as the slogan "Change the way you see the world", which most likely alludes to the twin 12MP rear cameras on the P9.

The #OO hashtag on Huawei's event invite makes pretty clear reference to the twin-camera system heading to the back of the upcoming handset, developed in collaboration with Leica.

Rumours surrounding the new Huawei smartphone are growing ahead of its official presentation. Specialist websites expect specs including a 5.2in Full HD screen, a Kirin 950 octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a USB Type-C connector, a digital fingerprint reader and a 12-megapixel dual-lens camera around the back.

All this is still speculation at the moment. Either way, the P9 will be big news as Huawei seeks to maintain its position as the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer by offering well-specced premium hardware at reasonable prices.