Samsung Galaxy S3 faces shipping delays for some of the models

Customers who pre-ordered Samsung's new smartphone are facing weeks of delays in receiving their handsets.

The South Korean firm signalled that it had faced issues in making blue models of the Samsung Galaxy S3.

Vodafone added that it had also been advised of "shipping delays" to the white 32GB version handset

Available devices went on sale in the UK and 27 other European and Middle Eastern countries earlier.

"Samsung's Galaxy S3 Pebble Blue version comes with a newly invented blue colour and special hyper glaze material," said a statement from the electronics company.

"In order to meet the highest internal quality standards and to provide the best quality Galaxy S3 to customers, a short supply of [the] Pebble Blue version is expected in some regions in the next two to three weeks."

Looks like we are looking forward to an interesting phone in an interesting colour