The Kindle beat out the seventh Harry Potter book, to become Amazon's best-selling product ever.
Harry Potter was no match for the Kindle this Christmas. The third-generation
of Amazon's Kindle e-reader knocked the top-selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) from the top spot,
making it the bestselling product in Amazon's history, the online retailer
announced Dec. 27.
Over the 2010 holiday season, Amazon's top-selling items were the
WiFi-enabled Kindle and the Kindle 3G. In the electronics category, the same
two devices reigned, followed by the Apple iPod touch 8GB.
"We're grateful to the millions of customers who have made the all-new
Kindle the bestselling product in the history of Amazon," Jeff Bezos,
Amazon.com founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Bezos added-seeming to imply that there is plenty of space in consumers'
hearts, and wallets, for both the Kindle and the Apple iPad-that a number of
customers who bought Kindles also have tablets, and that they use the two for
different activities. Basically: Do anything you want on an iPad, but please
leave the e-books to Amazon.
"Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and Web
browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions. They report preferring Kindle
for reading because it weighs less, eliminates battery anxiety with its
month-long battery life, and has the advanced paper-like Pearl e-ink display that
reduces eye-strain, doesn't interfere with sleep patterns at bedtime, and works
outside in direct sunlight. . . ." said Bezos. "Kindle's $139 price
point is a key factor-it's low enough that people don't have to choose."
As
was the case last year-when a Kindle was, likewise, Amazon's most-gifted
item-the retailer declined to say exactly how many it had sold. It did offer,
however, that Nov. 29 was its most killer sales day, with customers worldwide
ordering more than 13.7 million items, or a record-breaking 158 items per
second.
Additionally, customers who bought iPad, iPhone and Android devices for
loved ones during the holidays most often did so on Sunday-while the biggest
shopping day for BlackBerry smartphones was Friday.
Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" beat out "The 99 Most
Essential Christmas Masterpieces" for top Amazon MP3; loads of babies were
given the "Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes"; and hirsute honeys
everywhere have likely lately been shorn with a Philips Norelco Men's Shaving
System.
Amazon shipped to 178 countries over the holidays, though the very farthest
it sent postal workers hiking was to the hamlet of Grise Fiord, north of the
Arctic Circle, where hopefully two different gift recipients were happy to open
"Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue" and "Call of Duty: Black Ops."
As for the very last gift that Amazon delivered in time for Christmas-ordered
by a terrible procrastinator in Woodinville, Wash., (you know who you are)-it
was an Apple Mac Mini. It was ordered at 1:41 p.m. on Christmas Eve and, via
Amazon's Local Express Delivery, was received at 8:04 p.m. that night.
Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.
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