The Galaxy SIII is all set to take full-collision course against the world's most preferred smartphone, the iPhone 4S, as Samsung simultaneously launched this week its flagship mobile phone units in key Asian and European markets.

The SIII upgrade was unleashed Tuesday in Singapore and a number of selected nations in the Middle East, according to The Associated Press.

The high-end smartphone, viewed by tech experts as iPhone's closest rival, also debuted in the Euro zone, which includes the lucrative markets of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The South Korean has made clear when it unveiled that Galaxy SIII that it intends to release the handset to as many markets as possible across the globe, its efforts unhindered this year by lawsuits that Apple had extensively utilised last year to prevent Samsung from hitting markets that iPhone has dominated since its introduction in 2007.

By the start of Q3 this year, Samsung aims to establish a global partnership with hundreds of leading telcos operating in key markets around the world, specifically in China where the company fiercely competes with Apple for dominance of the millions of mobile subscribers concentrated in the sprawling nation.

China Mobile alone holds an estimated customer database of about 600 million, which Apple and Samsung hope to secure in the immediate years ahead.

Samsung is taking pains to lure away iPhone fans that have been engrossed with their Apple gadgets for a number of years, opting to simply upgrade on the latest iPhone editions and overlooking that slew of Android smartphone alternatives that have flooded the market.

While most of the competition failed to get their products' message across to discriminating consumers, Samsung's smartphones, which stand on the Google-engineered mobile platform, made considerable headways since last year.

Its product lines of Galaxy phones, bannered by the SII, Nexus and Galaxy Note, pushed Samsung to the top of global smartphone competition in Q3 2011 but by the end of December last year, Apple recovered the throne mainly on the incredible sales recorded by the iPhone 4S, which the company launched in late October.

But Samsung quickly pushed ahead come the end of March 2012 as the company's combined sales of high-end and entry-level smartphones wrestled the lead from the American firm.

Samsung's Android-powered smartphones delivered to the Asian tech titan total sales of more than 44 million units in the first three months of 2012 while Apple also chalked up a blockbuster result of about 35 million iPhones flying off the company's shelves in the same period, AP said.

Effectively, analysts said, the smartphone showdown has been reduced to two dominant players - Apple and Samsung - as other firms grapple with products that failed to capture the interest and imagination of global consumers.

Apple, experts said, has convinced the world that its products were crucial components of its day-to-day existence while Samsung managed to get its message across that viable alternatives were out there besides the million-selling iPhone and they are in the form of equally sleek and sexy Galaxy smartphones.

By offering more than one handset model, Samsung proved that Apple can be beaten, at least in terms of sales volume, and the company intends to sustain its momentum by deploying both design and feature upgrades to the new Galaxy SIII.

The handset now comes with a larger screen, dwarfing that of iPhone's, which measures at 4.8-inch and mostly upgraded on the offerings of its predecessor, which previous Samsung buyers have welcomed with gusto.

But for Samsung, Galaxy SIII's major uplift is the product lines evolving ecosystem, major features of which will be unveiled with the new mobile phone.

To be launched alongside the SIII is Samsung's revamped Music Hub, which will be pitted against Apple's iTunes.

The intuitive music service, Samsung said, comes with a music library comprised of about 19 million music files and accommodates streaming requests or download clicks and is coupled with options of online storage facility that users can use to file their collection of tunes.

The revamps of its in-house services and the improvements of its new and upcoming products, Samsung hopes, would lead to the creation of loyal consumers that could prove crucial to Samsung's long-term sustainability.