Samsung has announced that the Galaxy S III smartphone has achieved 20 million unit sales in just 100 days since its debut in May 2012.

Samsung said this makes it the company’s most successful smartphone to date.

"The Galaxy S III has enjoyed tremendous attention and popularity since its launch in May, and we are thrilled with its success," said JK Shin, president and head of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.”

The company also announced that it will release the handset in a range of new colours.

Nokia has shown off two new smartphones, both based on the Windows Phone 8 operating system, and with upgraded camera capabilities – and the ability to use the touchscreen while wearing gloves. Both handsets are based on the 1.5GHz Dual Core Snapdragon S4 processor.

Using floating lens technology, the 8.7 megapixel camera in the Nokia Lumia 920 is able to take in five times more light than competing smartphones without using flash, and including an image stabiliser for shaking hands.

The two new phones also include a "multi-touch experience based on the  Synaptics ClearPad capacitive touchscreen sensing technology" – which means the touchscreens work whether the user has long fingernails, or is wearing gloves.

ClearPad Series 3 offers up to 10 finger full-time tracking and fast refresh rates, and what is said to be an industry leading signal-to-noise-ratio.

The other handset, the Nokia Lumia 820 is a mid-range smartphone. While the Nokia Lumia 820 has the same unibody look and feel as the high end Lumia smartphones, it comes with an exchangeable shell design. Exchangeable shells not only make it possible to select from a range of colours, but also to add wireless charging. Beneath the shell is room to insert a micro SD memory card.

Both phones will be available in pentaband LTE and HSPA+ variants and are expected to start shipping in select markets later in the year.

Nokia will announce pricing and specific roll-out dates country by country when sales are due to begin.

Etisalat has said it will not participate in the forthcoming GSM licence auction in India, having been burnt badly in the 2008 licence scandal.

The company is the first major overseas investor to say it would not make an attempt to re-enter the market following the auction.

The company owns a 45 per cent stake in Etisalat DB (formerly Swan Telecom), one of the companies caught up in the GSM licences scandal and which had its concessions cancelled by India’s Supreme Court earlier this year.

Etisalat wrote-off US$827 million on its financials related to its investment in India.

Ericsson is reportedly at the head of the queue to acquire rival Nokia Siemens Networks’ (NSN) business support systems (BSS) division, reports Dow Jones Newswires.

Ericsson is busy expanding its OSS/BSS unit, including the acquisition of US OSS company Telcordia for US$1.15 billion, which was completed at the beginning of the year.

Other companies believed to be circling the NSN division, which provides billing and charging systems for telcos, include US telecom equipment maker Amdocs and several private equity firms.
Although sources said the unit is among assets NSN is considering selling, they did not confirm if the sale was imminent.

Bloomberg News reports that Zain Iraq has had its funds seized in all Iraqi banks until it pays a US$262 million fine for selling five million SIM cards without permission, Iraq’s telecommunications regulator said.

“We have warned them to pay the fine,” Ahmad Al Omari, a member of the Communications and Media Commission’s trustee board, said. “This procedure has been carried out as a punishment.”

The commission said on its website in February 2011 that the fine was imposed on Zain for putting five million SIM cards on the local market without permission. Zain Group said at the time that it did not know why Iraq’s media and telecommunications regulator had imposed the fine.