Samsung Galaxy 'S3' gets its own pop-up shops

As the days count down to the launch of the much-anticipated Galaxy S III, Samsung has revealed that it is setting up four pop-up stores in London to sell the Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphone.

The Mobile PIN shops are mirrored-glass structures that can be picked up and moved to new locations as needed, Samsung said in a blog post on Friday. The first two will open their doors in the Westfield Centre in Shepherd's Bush and Old Spitalfields Market on Tuesday, a day before the official launch of the handset.

Later in the summer, two more will be set up in Hyde Park and the Olympic Park. All the stores are dedicated to showing off the Galaxy S III, which has a 1.4GHz quad-core chip and voice features that echo the iPhone's Siri assistant.

The moving phone shops are part of Samsung's campaign to stir up Apple-like excitement around the debut of the handset, the successor to the popular Galaxy S II. The Korean company has already revealed that the 'S3' is the official phone of this summer's London Olympic Games, for example.

Its efforts appear to be paying off: Orange told ZDNet UK that "the Samsung S3 is proving hugely popular", and the handset has racked up more pre-orders than any other new phone this year at Carphone Warehouse, the retailer has said.

Here's a Samsung video of the Mobile PIN store, showing how it is put together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwRkRRUBM3w