Samsung: Galaxy S III sales hit 20 million in 100 days

Samsung said its global sales of the recently-released Galaxy S III smartphone have hit the 20 million mark in just over three months.

The long-awaited smartphone's roll out to the masses was initially hampered by delays and supply chain issues. It launched in Europe on May 29, but was only brought to the U.S. market in mid-June after major carriers held back on selling what few devices it had due to "manufacturer supply constraints."

But Samsung averted the crisis and managed to reach its 10 million sales in July target set by Samsung mobile business president J.K. Shin, thanks to strong demand in Europe. 

The phone's launch was strategically timed to get a headstart on rival firms' own announcements, notably Nokia, Motorola, and Apple's next-generation iPhone, due to be announced in San Francisco on September 12.

(By comparison: Apple is expected to sell between 6 to 10 million iPhone 5 smartphones sold reach by the end of the first week of its launch, pegged for mid-to-late September.)

Earlier this week, analysts said that they believed September was "the first month since the iPhone 4S launched in October 2011 that it was not the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. market," with Apple surrendering the U.S. top-selling smartphone crown to Samsung.

The Galaxy S III, dubbed as your BYOD next-best friend, it features a thin and light shell, a high-definition AMOLED display, 4G networking, and Google's Android 4.0 'Ice Cream Sandwich.'

In July, Samsung announced it was partnering with security firm AuthenTec to bring the firm's virtual private networking (VPN) technology to its range of Galaxy devices. By integrating AuthenTec's QuickSec VPN client technology, Galaxy smartphones users will have secure access to corporate networks to internal documents, features and applications on the go. 

Less than a fortnight later, Apple snapped up AuthenTec, a designer of fingerprint sensors and identity management hardware, for $356 million.