Samsung set to unveil new Galaxy S7 flagship smartphone at 'Unpacked' event on 21 February

Just like the Galaxy S6, the S7 will be unveiled just ahead of this year's Mobile World Congress

Samsung unveils their previous Galaxy model, the S6, at Mobile World Congress in March 2015 (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Samsung appears to have revealed the announcement date for its new smartphone, the Galaxy S7.

The company has sent out invitations to an announcement event called 'Unpacked', which is due to take place on 21 February in Barcelona.

Just like they did last year, Samsung will be unveiling the S7 just ahead of the Mobile World Congress, which this year runs from 22 to 25 February in the Catalan capital.

As well as sending 'Unpacked' invites out to the press, Samsung posted a teaser video to its YouTube channel in the early hours of 1 February, which shows a mysterious black box and a man putting on a Gear VR headset, possibly suggesting there could be a VR-related announcement at the event as well.

The unveiling of the new phone will naturally take centre stage, but some additional new details about VR would make fans even happier.

The event takes place on Sunday 21 February, and begins at 6PM GMT. The whole event will be streamed live from the Barcelona International Convention Centre on Samsung's YouTube channel and press site.

We haven't got an official glance at the S7 yet, but all rumours suggest it'll look fairly similar to the S6. A few upgrades to the internals are likely to include a MicroSD slot, IP67 water and dust-proofing, and a beefed up battery and processor to keep it running smoothly. It'll also likely come in the regular, Edge and Edge+ models that we first saw with the S6.