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.