One year ago, in May of 2011, Samsung launched the Galaxy S II. At the time, many regions received the stock variant, and the European rollout went smoothly. One of the biggest problems for Samsung at the launch was one of their biggest markets: North America.

It took until September, 5 months later, for the first Galaxy S II variant to hit the US. Now, many believe that carriers are the ones causing the delays, but Samsung could easily get the phone ready in time for launch. The 5 month delay was annoying to say the least, and I was one of many who fell out of the hype Samsung worked so hard to build up. It didn’t stop the handset from selling millions upon millions of units, but it could have had a much bigger impact in the US.

I feared that a repeat could happen with the Galaxy S III, something that could even destroy Samsung’s name in the US. Then, about a week ago, after speaking with a few sources, I was assured that Samsung would be doing it right this time. I was told the Galaxy S III would be launching in North America on June 20th, and would you look at that: multiple Canadian carriers have confirmed that they will be launching the phone on the 20th.

How does this apply to the US, you say? My sources claim that the S III will be hitting at least 2 carriers in the US on the 20th, which lines up with a rumor from TmoNews not too long ago. Everything is coming together, and it can’t be long before the US carriers make their announcements. My prediction? Tuesday, June 5th will be the announcement day, and pre-orders for the device will begin Friday, the 8th.

Another huge debacle about the device is what processor will be powering it. Up until today, rumor on the street had been that the Exynos still isn’t LTE compatible, which was confirmed with much despair. A dual-core processor will be in the North American S III, and from first glance, that could hinder plenty of sales. Samsung is on it though, and threw in an extra gig of RAM, bringing the device to 2GB. Something that I’ve learned with Android is that with all the multitasking going on, RAM can actually matter more in terms of speed than the processor. Anyone concerned about the North American variant having speed issues should not worry – this phone will fly.

Next month will be huge for Samsung in North America, and as long as the device doesn’t see any delays, they may have the biggest Android hit to date on their hands. Kudos to Samsung, my upgrade will probably be used on a shiny new Galaxy S III.