Stefan Mileschin

If it was not bad enough having your rival try to sue you out of the market, Samsung Electronics managed to stuff up the launch of its new Galaxy S III by not having enough of them ready.

The company is estimated to have lost more than 2 million units of sales in just a month by not having enough ready.

Some of the shortage stemmed from a manufacturing glitch that affected some European sales, while major carriers in the United States have had to delay delivery of some pre-ordered phones.

The Galaxy S III has received positive reviews and sales are likely to top 10 million in the first two months since its launch.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said that Samsung seemed to have been caught off guard by the demand, not because they did not believe in their own products, but because they might have over-estimated the competition.

Other than the iPhone and HTC's One X there's not much out there at the moment, which would have certainly helped Samsung, she said.

Samsung claimed that its component shortages have been resolved and it is running at full tilt to meet demand.

However a spokesperson told Reuters that demand far exceeded its expectations. To make matters worse, some people thought its expectations were optimistic, but they turned out to have misty optics.

The word on the street is that the Galaxy shortage will only be a temporary hiccup, but it is affecting some 2 million units of shipments in the April-June quarter.

Barclays has lowered its forecast for Samsung's second-quarter Galaxy S III shipments to 6.5 million from 8 million, but raised its third-quarter shipment forecast by 1 million to 15 million.

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