Samsung to launch third-generation Galaxy S on 3 May

Samsung Electronics Co said on Monday it would launch the third-generation of its flagship smartphone Galaxy S on 3 May in London, banking on a heavy marketing campaign heading into the summer Olympics in the city. The official invite which has been sent does not display the new phone but just shows blobs of blue and white.

According to CNET, the phone could come with a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, a quad-core Exynos chipset and a possible ceramic finish. Other rumours state that the phone could sport a 12-megapixel camera, and 2GB RAM which would make it a pretty powerful smartphone.

Samsung became the world’s top smartphone maker last year on the back of strong sales of Galaxy lineups and the latest edition comes after it released Galaxy S II in late April last year.

The South Korean firm sold over 40 million Galaxy smartphones since the model was released in June 2010.

Samsung, which dominates in the top end of smartphone market along with Apple Inc , estimated earlier this month that its first-quarter operating profit would hit a record 5.8 trillion Korean won thanks to strong sales of Galaxy series smartphones.

Its current sponsorship deal with the International Olympics Committee runs out in 2016. It has said its market share in China doubled after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The current Samsung Galaxy SII comes with a 1.2 GHz dual core processor. A quad core processor would mean that the next Galaxy S phone would have a more powerful processor than the current iPhone 4S which has a dual core processor.

The 4.6 inch screen slightly bigger than SII’s 4.27 inch screen.

With inputs from Reuters