A large-screen iPhone 6 on release date is inevitable, a new report said, adding that the hotly-anticipated device's arrival could be much earlier than thought of.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White was on recent tour in Asia, according to Apple Insider, the general pulse he gathered there was of the alarming decreasing attention that Apple's current flagship, the iPhone 5S, has been getting lately.

Particularly in China, Chinese telcos have been largely disappointed with the iPhone 5S as White claimed that network providers in the sprawling nation have intimated that the 5S is increasingly losing its sex appeal.

Apparently, major device makers in China like Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE are gaining fast on Apple, leading to the 5S losing its traction at a very alarming rate, said the Apple Insider report.

This worrying trend for Apple and other key Android device makers like Samsung was picked up by Business Insider. It appears from the report that local players are breathing hard on the tech titans' neck, no thanks to aggressive tactics.

Even small players like Coolpad and Xiaomi are starting to gain sufficient ground against the biggies by offering a combo of impressive device specs with attractive pricing, White told Business Insider.

The decline has been observed for some time now but the Cantor Fitzgerald analyst maintained that Apple can easily reverse the situation - by finally entering the phablet market.

Started by Samsung with the first Galaxy Note smartphone in 2011, phablets roared into incredible growth pace since then, prompting analysts to predict that the iPhone maker will soon join the pack despite earlier protestations from Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Such move could prove very big for Apple, especially in its present thrust to increase its presence in China.

"We heard great enthusiasm around the potential for Apple to introduce a larger iPhone form-factor in China this year with the iPhone 6," White wrote in his note to investors on Friday

He added that "the iPhone 6 with a larger screen (e.g., 4.7-inch, 5.5-inch) has the potential to meaningfully accelerate Apple's growth trajectory in China during 2H:14 (second half of 2014)."

The analyst also predicted that a phablet-size iOS smartphone "could be a very special iPhone launch for Apple."

The iPhone 6 release date, boasting of an upsized display from the 4-inch iPhone 5S and loads of killer features stuffed with iOS 8, was previously forecasted by some analyst to come earlier than its predecessor, likely between July and August 2014 with the volume production set to start in May.