The first phone maker to put a fingerprint reader into the screen may be Vivo

The biggest question regarding both Apple and Samsung's upcoming flagship phones is currently this: Will they come with a fingerprint reader embedded into the screen?

And while the jury is still out on both the upcoming iPhone 8 and Samsung's Note 8, a new report claims that the first phone maker to launch a phone with this feature is China's Vivo.

The report, unearthed by Android Authority, comes from researcher Jiutang Pan, who shared his intelligence on Weibo.

According to Pan, Vivo may release a phone with a fingerprint scanner inside the screen in the next few months. Apple's iPhone 8 and Samsung's Note 8 aren't expected before September. Pan thinks that the Note 8 will not have this feature at all, while Apple will be the first "foreign" -- i.e., outside of China -- manufacturer to launch this feature.

Pan's report is far more credible than your usual analyst talk, however, as the researcher shared a video of a prototype Vivo phone with a fingerprint scanner invisibly embedded into the screen.

In the video, we see a smartphone apparently being unlocked by placing a finger on a dedicated area on the screen, which disappears as soon as the phone is unlocked.

Vivo isn't as well-known a brand as Samsung or Apple, but it is selling a lot of smartphones; it is currently the fifth-largest manufacturer in terms of global smartphone shipments, according to IDC. It launched several innovative products in the past couple of years, including an ultra-thin smartphone as well as a smartphone with a dual selfie camera.