New reports are suggesting that the Asus ZenFone 3 will be equipped with fingerprint recognition technology. The next ZenFone handset is slated to be launched anywhere between May and June of next year.

Digitimes cites Taiwanese supply-chain sources saying that the next generation of the Asus ZenFone will most likely sport fingerprint scanners. The technology is to be developed by Elan Microelectronics, a tech company in Taiwan, and Goodix, a Chinese supplier.

Aside from fingerprint scanners, it is also known that the ZenFone 3 will have a USB Type-C port. Asus chairman Jonney Shih confirmed by saying in an interview with Trusted Reviews, "I think Type C is the way to go, frankly speaking."

The ZenFone 2 will be celebrating it's first birthday next month, and though previous rumours banked on seeing the predecessor for the Asus handset during the celebration event, it is most likely not going to happen just yet.

Instead, Asus device users will have to wait until around May to June of 2016 for the launch of the ZenFone 3.

The Asus ZenFone 2 was released in March 2015 and sports a 5.5-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen with a 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution. There are two variants of the phone having different chipsets. The 4 GB RAM variant is powered by a Intel Atom Z3580 chipset, and the 2 GB RAM variant is powered by a Intel Atom Z3560 processor.

In 2015, Asustek reached 20 million in smartphone shipments and the company aims to ship 30 million handsets next year. However, the challenge of fierce competition continues to increase as Chinese OEM players like Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Oppo, Meizu and many more are also slated to release some promising smartphones next year.

Sources also claim that Asustek has included Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt and Nigeria as the next target countries to introduce ZenFones.

The Zenfone 2 has a non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh battery, and the third generation of the Asustek smartphone is not expected to have anything smaller than that.