Samsung Galaxy S III (i-9300) to Launch in 2-5 Weeks, Immediate World-Wide Availability

It is rumored that Samsung will launch Galaxy SIII superphone at the Samsung Unpacked event (May 22). However, we've been told that the launch is being moved forward, with immediate world-wide availability (excluding USA, which will follow in Summer 2012).

A lot of ink, both virtual and physical was spent on speculations what the specifications of one of hottest smartphones, or "superphones" will be. Samsung i9300 or Galaxy SIII was originally planned to launch on May 22, 2012 at the Samsung Unpacked event, but it looks that Samsung moved forward the date when the new smarphone will be released.

Furthermore, the new Galaxy SIII will follow with almost immediate retail availability in APAC and EMEA, with North America to follow. Samsung allegedly decided to enter the European market ahead of the American market due to a multiple sports events that will take place throughout summer.

Samsung is a major sponsor of Olympics 2012 and one of their largest competitors, SHARP - is the key sponsor of Euro 2012. However, Samsung and its marketing agencies are preparing to blanket the airwaves with Samsung Galaxy SIII taking the key place with telco partners such as Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile. First and foremost, Galaxy SIII will be advertised with soccer players from Samsung-sponsored clubs (not country representatives, as Samsung has no rights for EURO 2012), and then those ads will be replaced with Olympics 2012 signage.

The phones will be in stores during early weeks of May, and we expect a major push. Remember, rumored specifications cite a 4.7" HD Ready (1280x720) Super AMOLED+ display, quad-core Exynos processor ticking at 1.5GHz, 1GB of system memory and 16-32GB Storage (expandable to 64GB with microSDHC cards).

When it comes to connectivity, it was originally rumored that the Galaxy SIII will only support LTE at 700MHz (US Market). That however, is not true. Galaxy SIII will support LTE over European 1800MHz band as well, which is the reason why the European telecoms are eager to get as much units as possible.

The question now stands - can Samsung Galaxy SIII beat the iPhone 5 in number of units sold during 2012?

source