Samsung Galaxy S III racks up nine million pre-orders

Samsung's Galaxy S III is set launch on the 29 May in the UK and reports suggest there have been nine million pre-orders placed worldwide so far.

In addition to this, Samsung is gearing up to produce approximately five million units a month, according to the Korea Economic Daily .

The previous generation Galaxy S II took six months to rack up 10 million sales when it was launched in April 2011.

This suggests the Galaxy S III is already on course to surpass its predecessor and could be most successful Android handset to date.

T-Mobile is offering unlimited internet, texts and minutes to any network for 41 per month on a 24-month contract.

Key specifications of the Galaxy S III include a 4.8in Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720 resolution, a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel camera. The device will be available with a choice of 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, will support microSD cards, and a 2100mAh battery to allow all-day usage.

Samsung will provide users with 50GB of cloud storage from Dropbox, double the amount HTC has been offering with its HTC One X device.

The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich handset will debut Samsung's S-Voice system, which is positioned as a direct rival to Apple's personal assistant, Siri. The inclusion of S-Voice software could kick off another legal battle between the two companies, which are already locked in multiple disputes over design and patent infringements.

Samsung will also introduce unique gesture-based features. Raising the handset to your ear when writing a text message will trigger the device to automatically call the recipient of the message. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, will watch the user, so the screen will turn off only when users look away or put the phone down.

All the major networks are offering the handset on subsidised deals. Three appears to be offering the cheapest contract with the best allowance. For 34 per month on a 24-month contract, users will get 2,000 minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes, 5,000 texts and most importantly, all-you-can-eat-data.

Business users who need more than 2,000 any-network minutes could opt for T-Mobile. For 41 per month on a 24-month contract, the network offers unlimited minutes to any network as well as unlimited texts and internet.

Meanwhile, Vodafone is offering the 16GB model for free from 41 per month, when you sign up to a 24-month contract. This includes 900 minutes, unlimited texts, 2GB of data and 100 music tracks when you pre-order.