Samsung Galaxy S5
Samsung Galaxy S5 REUTERS/Albert Gea

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is scheduled to have a simultaneous global official release in 150 countries on April 11. However, a South Korean carrier has jumped the gun on the tech world and started selling the new flagship on Thursday, March 27, for 866,800 won.

Even Samsung, the manufacturer of the much anticipated device, was surprised by SK Telecom's move.

SK sold the S5 ahead of April 11 because it has been banned by the government to sign up customers in April and May as punishment for illegal subsidies to new clients. The same ban was imposed on KT Corp and LG Uplus Corp.

The carrier justified its defiance of Samsung, telling Korea Herald, "We just wanted to provide the device to local users as soon as possible. It is for the good of our subscribers."

Samsung said it is verifying the fact, although the Seoul-based tech giant admitted it sent mobile carriers limited number of the S5 for marketing and pre-sales activities.

C/Net noted that it was a risky move on the part of the carrier to jump the gun on Samsung and place in peril its future business dealings with the phone maker which unveiled the new flagship in February.

The S5 has a 5.1-inch display with 1920x1080 pixels and is powered by a 2,.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snahpdragon 801 processor. It runs on Android 4.4 OS and TouchWiz UI. The rear camera is 16 megapixels and the front-facing shooter is 2 mexapixels.