Samsung’s much-awaited GALAXY S3 officially launched in South Africa yesterday at a lavish event in Johannesburg.
The S3 is the follow-up to the highly-successful GALAXY S2, which sold over 20 million units in February this year.
The launch event was held at the Sandton Convention Centre, decked out in Samsung’s official blue and white corporate colours.
“With the Galaxy S III, Samsung has maximised the consumer benefits by integrating superior hardware with enhanced smartphone usability,” said Craige Fleischer, Director of Mobile Communications at Samsung Electronics South Africa.
He added that South Africa is one of seven countries to go live with Samsung’s Video Hub video-streaming service.
“You can rent or buy HD movies from as little as R10. The selection is significant, but not all-encompassing. But as the service evolves and becomes more pervasive, we’ll drive further content on it.”
The device features a number of first-time technologies for Samsung, making use of S-Voice, Smart Stay, S Beam and AllShare Cast. The unit features a 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display, an 8MP camera and a 1.9MP front camera, has a 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and 1 GB RAM.
“We are very excited about the S3 in South Africa. It’s a wonderful piece of equipment and we know it will do well. I can tell you now that Samsung brought in 50 000 units before the launch and they are already sold out,” said Deon Liebenberg, country manager for Samsung.
The Samsung GALAXY S III will be available to South Africans for R7 999, and various mobile operators are expected to feature the unit as part of a bundle deal.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
