Samsung Electronics, the world's largest handset maker, said the Galaxy SIII will help mobile earnings surpass the first-quarter record, after users responded more positively to the latest smartphone model.

"We're getting far better feedback on the model overseas than what we experienced with the Galaxy SII," J.K. Shin, head of the Suwon, South Korea-based company's mobile-phone business, said at a briefing in Seoul today.

He didn't elaborate or provide a specific second-quarter forecast for the mobile unit, which posted record first-quarter profit of 4.3 trillion won (€2.95 billion).

The model goes on sale today in South Korea after being introduced in the US on June 21, and is the latest in the Galaxy series that helped Samsung regain leadership in the $219 billion (€175 billion) smartphone market from Apple in the first quarter.

Samsung dropped 4.2 per cent to 1,132,000 won at the close of Seoul trading, while Korea's benchmark Kospi index fell 1.2 per cent.

The electronics maker sold more than 50 million units of the previous two Galaxy S models globally in the past two years.

The company sold 93.5 million handsets in the first quarter, 36 per cent more than a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said April 27.

Nokia shipped 82.7 million, down 24 per cent, and Apple sold 35.1 million units, an 89 per cent gain from 2011. Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones in the three months ended in March, according to the researcher's data.

Separately, the company is investigating a complaint from a Galaxy SIII owner in Ireland that his phone overheated and burned its lower end, Mr Shin said.

An initial probe indicated that the damage wasn't caused by a battery explosion, he said.

The scorched handset was mounted in a moving car when a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of it, the phone's owner said in a June 20 posting on an online message board.

Bloomberg