Samsung Galaxy S III Launches Despite Reports of Delays

Despite delays in some regions, Samsung's Galaxy S III is finally on sale.

The anticipation for the arrival of the Galaxy S III has been building for months and today, a total of 26 days after the phone was unveiled, it finally arrived. The Galaxy S III went on sale in a total of 28 countries today. This includes the United Kingdom, France, UAE, and Saudi Arabia as well the Middle East and Africa. Though the UK's official release date isn't until tomorrow, customers who pre-ordered at selected locations were able to pick up their phone this evening.

The news follows word that some retailers and carriers in the UK were sending out notifications to those that had pre-ordered the device to say it had been delayed. Originally it was thought that just the blue version had been delayed, but a blog post published by retailer Clove said it had received notice from Samsung that stock of both the white and blue models of Galaxy S III had been delayed.

Clove's website still says that the phone won't be shipping until June 1, which is Friday, and Vodafone has warned customers that the pebble blue Galaxy S III might not make it to stores for another two to four weeks. As for Samsung, a rep confirmed the delays with Pocket-Lint, blaming a new manufacturing process for the blue-coloured phone for the delay.

"Samsung's Galaxy S III pebble blue version comes with a newly invented blue colour and special hyperglaze material," the manufacturer said. "In order to meet the highest internal quality standards and to provide the best quality Galaxy S III to customers, a short supply of pebble blue version is expected in some regions in the next 2-3 weeks."

The last time we heard of a company having problems producing its flagship device in another color was Apple's white iPhone. In the end, the white iPhone wasn't launched for nearly a year after the black model hit stores.

Samsung hasn't mentioned if this will affect the U.S. launch of the device, or any other country's launch for that matter. However, the phone is expected to arrive in North America by July.

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