Sony Mobile has revealed that its latest high-end smartphone, the Xperia Z, is off to a good start after its launch in Europe this week, Reuters reports.

Calum MacDougall, head of Xperia marketing, told the new service in an interview: "We have seen really good pre-orders. We had the first stocks available in Germany in Berlin at the Sony store and sold those out in two hours."

The Xperia Z first went on sale in Sony's home country of Japan this month and expanded to many parts of Europe this week. On the company's online store, it is available for £529 SIM-free in the UK. Check out our availability piece for all of the carrier details.

READ: Sony: High-end Android is the future

Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013, the Xperia Z is promising to be quite a handset, being the latest and greatest piece of kit from Sony, with a Full HD 1080p screen and a powerful 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon chip.

In our review, we noted it was the strongest Android phone out of Sony, yet the camera and lack of innovation over previous Xperia models was a bit of a drawback.

READ: Sony Xperia Z review

Reuters also pressed for information on whether the company will release a Windows Phone 8 handset. "The products we will bring to the market in the first half of this year are Android products ... Of course we are always looking at different operating systems," the Sony exec said. He further confirmed the news about Firefox OS for 2014.

At Mobile World Congress 2013, Sony revealed its Xperia Tablet Z as well, pressuring Apple's fourth-generation iPad on specs.

In a November 2012 note from research-firm IDC, Sony ranked as the third place smartphone manufacturer behind Apple and Samsung. It will be interesting to see how the Japan-based company performs in 2013, and you bet we'll be keeping a close eye. Will Sony keep up the "good" sales?