Sony chief executive declares the European launch a resounding success; doesn’t comment on whether the company has hit its global target of 6 million units.

Sony had an estimated 1 million units available for the European launch of the PlayStation 3, 165,000 of which were sold in the UK during the launch weekend. Sony has so far been tight-lipped over further figures, but yesterday CEO Howard Stringer said the console had reached 800,000 sell-through in the European region, reports the Financial Times.

Stringer, speaking at the Spider-Man 3 movie premiere in Japan, told journalists that he believed that the sell-through in Europe was now “close to 800,000.” He also said that in the first two days on the market in the UK, £100 million in revenue “changed hands.”

“We came into the [European] market with more games, and perhaps we lived up to the expectations in Europe in a way that perhaps we didn’t in Japan,” he said.

However, Stringer did not mention whether or not Sony had hit its target of shipping 6 million units worldwide.