Samsung Racks Up 9M Galaxy S III Preorders

Samsung's premier device for 2012 has received 9 million preorders weeks ahead of launch.

The Samsung Galaxy S III doesn't go on sale until May 29, but 9 million people have already placed preorders for the device. The orders are flowing in from more than 100 wireless network operators around the world, reported the Korea Economic Daily. Samsung said that its factory is running at full speed, producing up to 5 million units of the device per month.

Samsung didn't indicate whether or not it will be able to meet the initial demand for the Galaxy S III, but the device is being rolled out in waves to countries around the world and not all at once. The staggered launch should help.

[ Google plans to sell Android 5.0 smartphones directly through its Google Play Store. Read about it at Why Google's Nexus Plan Makes Sense. ]The S III is the most important device of the year for Samsung's mobile division. It reaches the market more than a year after its predecessor, which was a smash hit worldwide, selling more than 10 million units. The S III will go head-to-head on store shelves with the iPhone 4S and next-gen iPhone, the HTC One X and One S, the Nokia Lumia 900, and other top-tier phones.

With so many preorders already booked, the device is primed to take the world by storm. Samsung recently become the world's largest seller of both cellular phones in general and smartphones in particular.

What's unclear yet is which U.S. wireless network operators will offer the S III. We know it will hit the U.S. with support for U.S. LTE 4G networks, but Samsung has been coy about which ones. Historically, nearly all the wireless network operators in the U.S., including the smaller regional and pre-paid carriers, have offered Samsung's Galaxy S devices. I would expect this pattern to repeat itself with the S III, which should be available from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless, among others, with slight variations between them.

The Galaxy S III follows the path set by previous generations of the Galaxy S series, but with more of everything. It runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and will have the latest Samsung user interface skin, called TouchWiz, on board. It features a 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 HD display and a quad-core Exynos processor with 1GB of RAM.

At 133 grams (4.7oz), the S III is incredibly light. It measures 8.6mm thick, which isn't the thinnest dimension in the smartphone market, but it's still very thin. The S III includes all the radios that matter: LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi, a GPS, GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC. The 4G support is vital for this class of device, and by upping to Bluetooth 4.0, the S III will be able to work with an incredible array of accessories without affecting battery life.

The camera shoots 8- and 2-megapixels and 1080p/720p HD video with the back and front cameras, respectively, and the S III's advanced facial recognition features, which keep the display awake or tag photos, is really neat stuff.

It comes with plenty of storage options plus the ability to supplement it with microSD cards.

The device launches first in Germany.