The DigiTimes website cites its "industry sources" as saying that HTC will move into the large-size smartphone market by launching a new flagship model later in the year.
According to the site, the five-inch display will feature a pixel resolution of 1794 by 1080 pixels, which The Verge deduces to mean that it will have the full 1920 x 1080 panel, but without the 126 vertical lines for the on-screen novigation buttons introduced for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
DigiTimes suggests that HTC has been given confidence by the success of Samsung's Galaxy Note 5.3-inch phone/tablet hybrid, which has sold more than 5m units since it went on sale last year.
Samsung intends to launch the Galaxy Note 2 later this month, featuring a reported 5.5-inch display.
LG Electronics has also moved into the large-screen device market by launching its 5-inch Optimus Vu in May 2012.
DigiTimes is notoriously patchy with its predictions, but there could be some basis to the 5-inch HTC phone report, as a GLBenchmark result recently matched the stated resolution.
The GLB information sheet also indicated that the as-yet-unnamed handset would come with Qualcomm's MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 SoC with Adreno 320 graphics.
HTC has previously updated its Android lineup twice a year, meaning the 5-inch flagship handset come be announced in the autumn.
However, the company may not want to draw attention away from its expected new handsets running Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 operating system.
