Although the US version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 have not been officially unveiled or released yet, we can be sure that they will be the best-selling smartphones of 2012 as they carry the torch of their predecessors.
US release date: iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3 first?
Samsung has, however, stolen a march on Apple by showing off the international Galaxy S3 model earlier in May. This model is expected to be out in Europe by the end of May, which is exactly a year since the S2 went on sale in Europe in 2011, meaning Samsung are right on schedule.
So, while those lucky Europeans might get the Samsung Galaxy S3, people in the US waiting for the AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon versions might be hanging on for a while. Samsung has said that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be out in the US in the summer, but this could mean anything from June 20 to late September, which is a similar scenario to the one with the S2 last year. The first US variant of the S2 came out in September 2011, with some models going on sale as late as October. This means that we might have to wait until September to see the first US models of the Samsung Galaxy S3 hit our shores.
With the iPhone 5, it’s a bit different. New iPhone models are out in the US in their first wave. WWDC starts on June 11 and this event is almost certainly the venue for this next iPhone launch, as it has been the venue for iPhone launches in the past, with the exception of the iPhone 4S. In terms of a US release date – if WWDC is the announcement venue, then we can expect pre-orders to become available the following week, with shipping starting before the end of June, just as with all previous launches.
We’ll be going to WWDC in San Francisco next month, and we’ll also be closely watching for any announcements from US phone networks about the Galaxy S3.
Who do you think is going to make it first to a store near you? Let us know in our comments section.
