Aspects of the present disclosure relate to wireless communications and, more particularly, to identifying a cell as a handover candidate in coverage areas based on decoding a secondary synchronization signal and/or a primary broadcast channel of the handover candidate cell. An example method generally includes initiating a search for a secondary synchronization signal (SSS) for a first cell of one or more handover candidate cells, and reporting the first cell as a handover candidate in a measurement report if the SSS for the first cell is detected a threshold number of times.