Sprint has announced that it is "running a little behind on deliveries" of the Samsung Galaxy S III. The 16GB versions will be available from Telesales and online on June 21 as advertised, and pre-orders will ship this week. They also say that the 32GB versions will be shipped out for customers who pre-ordered next week, but again with no word about in-store sales.

Due to overwhelming demand and limited supply for Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy S III, we are running a little behind on deliveries. The 16GB version of Samsung Galaxy S III device will be available in Web Sales and Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1) beginning on Thursday, June 21. It will be in all remaining sales channels next week.



We are optimistic that we’ll be shipping all Samsung Galaxy S III-16GB pre-orders this week and that they will be delivered by June 21 as anticipated. There is a chance, however, that we may be a day or two late. We anticipate shipping all Samsung Galaxy S III-32GB pre-orders next week. To check the status of your pre-order, please visit www.sprint.com/myorder.



We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate the patience of our customers as we work through this minor delay in availability. We know that many of you are eager to experience the next generation of the Samsung Galaxy series on the only network to provide unlimited data plans to new and existing customers. Should this situation change, we will continue to update this post as we have new information to share.

This comes shortly after word leaked out to TMo News that the T-Mobile version release was being split into two parts, with a June 21 date for the top markets and a June 27 date for everyone else. We're not sure why the Sprint release was delayed, and they're not saying, but according to T-Mobile the release date was split to try and meet demand. We've reached out to all major US carriers to get any updates to their release schedules.

As we mentioned when reporting that Canadian GSIIIs were being held back, we're not sure that we're getting the full story when told the delays are to help meet demand. Surely it's not some vast conspiracy, but we'd like nothing more than knowing the full story behind this date juggling. We'll keep asking, and when we can ferret out an answer you'll be the first to know.

Source: Sprint; TMoNews