I know that Microsoft is advertising the Surface a lot in the USA (especially product placement like in Elemental). Here in Germany I haven't seen a single advertisement, also the only way to buy one is through the official store (I would have loved to try one out in a at a local retailer). The standard payment procedure also requires a credit card, which isn't quite that popular here - so yeah, I'd say at least in Germany the sales probably are really weak. And it probably looks the same in other european countries.