Samsung Galaxy S3 pre-orders peg it as hottest phone of 2012

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the fastest selling pre-order blower of the year, according to Carphone Warehouse, which has been crunching some numbers on Samsung's follow-up to the hyper-popular Galaxy S2.

Proving what we already suspected -- that the Galaxy S3 is going to be a hugely successful mobile -- Carphone says it's taken thousands of pre-orders for the 4.8-inch smart phone.

"The first 24 hours alone saw thousands placing their pre-order," said one Carphone bod. The retailer reckons the massive demand makes the S3 the fastest selling pre-order of the year.

If cash continues to fly out of shoppers' wallets in Samsung's direction after the S3's launch next week, the Korean company's quad-core monster looks set to eclipse Android rivals such as the HTC One X or Sony Xperia S.

That leaves only one phone that Samsung has to beat this year. The iPhone 5 (or new iPhone, as it'll probably end up being called), is rumoured to be making an appearance in October.

Right now my fingers are crossed that Samsung manages not to screw up the S3's launch with some horrible design or software defect. The Galaxy Nexus was afflicted with an irksome volume bug when it came out in November that prevented us from awarding it with the four-and-a-half stars it deserved, at least until Google squeezed out an update.

The iPhone 4's awful antenna, the Nokia Lumia 800's battery bug, the HTC One X's dodgy screen -- if Samsung can get the S3 into peoples' pockets without something going wrong, it'll be doing well.

The S3 is out next Wednesday, or on Tuesday evening if you pre-ordered from the Samsung shop in East London. Are you excited? Will this be the year Samsung trounces Apple? Enthuse away in the comments or on our Facebook wall.