Samsung has finally cleared the hullabaloo around the release date of its much-awaited Galaxy S4 smartphone, the biggest single rival to Apple's iPhone. Samsung has set March 14 as the launch date once and for all.

The South Korean electronic major choose to unveil the successor of Galaxy S3, its best-selling smartphone model, in New York, taking the intense smartphone battle to Apple's turf reportedly due to increasing requests from the U.S. mobile carriers.

Samsung has officially confirmed to Reuters that it will release Galaxy S4 on March 14. "We introduced the Galaxy S3 in London last year, and this time we changed the venue (to New York)... as we were bombarded with requests from U.S. mobile carriers to unveil the Galaxy S4 in the country," Samsung Electronics' mobile division chief JK Shin was quoted as saying on the Edaily news Web site, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, AllThingsD has also received confirmation about the March 14 release and New York as the location; however, the Samsung representative declined to give out further details. Digging much into the developments, CNET reports that Samsung will send out invitations this morning for a 'Samsung Unpacked' event in New York for next month. Though the invitation does not elaborate on the event, the report claims that a high-level executive has confirmed that that Galaxy S4 will make its debut there.

Galaxy fans were disappointed to hear the recent rumor that the smartphone will come without the much-anticipated Exynos processor and AMOLED display. Instead, the Galaxy S4 will feature a Snapdragon 600 processor and full HD SoLux Display.

Samsung confirmed the release date just as the Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicked off in Barcelona where the company unveiled the 8-inch version of its Galaxy Note tablet.

Here is the final list of specifications at this point in time as listed out by SamMobile.

- 4,99-inch Full-HD SoLux Display.

- Snapdragon 600 1.9 Ghz.

- 2 GB RAM.

- 16, 32 and 64 GB storage variants.

- 13 Megapixel camera.

- 140.1 x 71.8 x 7.7mm dimension.

- 138 gram.

- Home button with touch buttons.

- Plastic back with aluminum sides.

- Removable battery.

- Two colors - Black/White.