Re/code said the event would be to announce Apple’s next-generation iPhones, with screen sizes stretched to 4.7 and 5.5 inches and with a faster processor.

Apple sold some 35 million iPhones in the past quarter, lifted by growth in China, but its share of the smartphone market has been shrinking globally.

The research firm Strategy Analytics said the rival Android operating system captured 85 per cent of the worldwide market in the second quarter, and is threatening to marginalize rival platforms.

Apple’s global market share fell to 11.9 per cent from 13.4 per cent a year ago, according to that survey.

Samsung, which has been selling large-screen phones and a wide variety of other handsets, has become the world’s largest smartphone maker with a 25 per cent market share, according to analysts.

Apple typically updates its product cycle in the second half of the year, getting a lift from holiday sales.

Last year it unveiled the iPhone 5S and the lower-priced iPhone 5C in September, getting record sales at the launch.

Apple is working on a new operating system which allows for mobile payments and includes a health platform. The system iOS8 is expected to be in the new iPhones.

But some analysts say Apple needs to come up with a new innovation to keep leadership in the tech sector. Reports say Apple is working on a smartwatch and a new interactive television, but the company has said little about this.

Meanwhile, Apple and Samsung have agreed to end all patent lawsuits between each other outside the US in a step back from three years of legal hostilities between the world’s two largest makers of smartphones.

However, Samsung said on Wednesday that the two smartphone rivals will continue to pursue existing cases in US courts. The two companies did not strike any cross-licensing deal.

“Samsung and Apple have agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States,” the South Korean company said. “This agreement does not involve any licensing arrangements, and the companies are continuing to pursue the existing cases in US courts.”

The announcement is a significant lessening of corporate hostilities after years of bitter patent disputes over the intellectual property rights for mobile designs and technology. The legal fights spanned a dozen countries in Asia, North America and Europe.

Now, lawsuits and other legal actions by Samsung and Apple will come to an end in countries including Germany, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan and Australia.

The patent cases in the US have come with bigger awards for damages than other countries. In May, a California jury awarded Apple US$119 million in a patent battle with Samsung.

The series of high-stake lawsuits over some of the world’s most popular gadgets began in April, 2011 when Apple accused Samsung, the maker of Galaxy phones, of slavishly copying the iPhone. Samsung responded by charging Apple of stealing its mobile technology.