The phone will be carried by Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA, as well as regional carrier U.S. Cellular, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. said.
T-Mobile and Sprint said they will start selling the phone on June 21. Sprint said the version with 16 gigabytes of memory will cost $200 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile did not say what it would charge. Samsung said the other phone companies will announce specific launch dates and prices later.
The Galaxy series has emerged as the most popular alternative to Apple Inc.’s iPhone. It runs Google’s Android software. The S III has a 4.8-inch screen, for a display area that’s nearly twice large as the iPhone’s. Yet the phone is slightly thinner and lighter than Apple’s phone.
The S III went on sale Europe and the Middle East last week.
Samsung doesn’t say how many smartphones it sells, but most analysts estimate that it outsold the 35.1 million iPhones Apple sold in the first three months of this year. Unlike Apple, it sells many smartphone models, most of them at prices well below the iPhone’s.
