Despite continuing wars with Apple over patents, Samsung is strengthening its hold in the touchscreen smart phone arena.

The global sales of Samsung Galaxy S3, the smart phones running on Android, has crossed 10 million, way ahead of expected schedule, Korea’s Yonhap news agency  reported quoting Samsung's IT and mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun.

This means 190,000 Galaxy S3s were shipped every day, a number that is sure to stun many analysts into thinking that the Korean company is emerging as a big challenger to Apple's hallowed iPhones.

The Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung had expected to cross the 10 million sales mark by end of this month, but has already reached the milestone, just two months after introducing the smart phone to the market. It took five months for S3’s predecessor Galaxy S2 to reach the same sales figure.

Reports suggest that Apple may advance the date for introducing its new iPhone model from the current schedule of September-October, even as it wrangles with Samsung over patents. In fact, the patent wars had been aimed partially at the Galaxy series phones and tablets. Apple had succeeded in temporarily halting the sale of Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 and Galaxy Nexus phone.

Part of the attraction for the Samsung phone is its price: $199 for the 16 GB model, compared to $299 for the 32 GB iPhone 4S. The display is better for the Galaxy phone too: 4.8 inch screen compared to the 3.5 inch for iPhone, which Apple is likely to increase in the next model.

Launched on May 29, Galaxy S3 runs on Android 4.0.4 (‘ice cream sandwich’) operating system and has a quad-core processor.

Meanwhile, a new research suggests that the smartphone users continue their love affair with iPhone.

While the Samsung sales are partially creating some increase in smartphone buying for this quarter, there is ‘unprecedented level’ of advance demand for the iPhone 5, according to the new ChangeWave survey conducted June 18-25 among 4,042 consumers.

Not sure how accurate those projections are, because the survey was conducted mainly among North American users, 88% of them from USA, while Samsung generally has a strong user base in Asia.