Kindle Tops Off Amazon Xmas As Best-Selling Product

It appears that many people’s wishes came true when they found an Amazon Kindle in their Christmas stocking at the weekend.

The heavily-promoted, third-generation of Amazon’s Kindle knocked the top-selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) off its pedestal, making  the e-reader the bestselling product in Amazon’s history, the online retailer claimed.

IPod Touch Beats iPad

Over the 2010 holiday season, Amazon’s top-selling items worldwide were the WiFi-enabled Kindle and the Kindle 3G. Naturally, these reigned supreme in the electronics category, followed by the Apple iPod Touch 8GB.

Last November, Amazon revealed that the Kindle electronic book reader was the top item on customers’ wish lists. It appears those desires were fulfilled, according to Amazon’s unaudited information.

“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.

From there, Bezos added — seeming to imply that there was 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 (£109) price point is a key factor — it’s low enough that people don’t have to choose.”

Second Year Running

As with 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 say that, overall, November 29 was its killer-sales day, with customers worldwide ordering more than 13.7 million gifts, 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 – though the biggest shopping day for BlackBerry smartphones was a Friday.

Kanye West’s My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy beat The 99 Most Essential Christmas Masterpieces to become the top Amazon MP3, myriads of babies were given the Baby Einstein Take-Along Tunes, and hirsute fellows everywhere have likely lately been shorn with a Philips Norelco Men’s Shaving System.

Amazon shipped to 178 countries over the holidays. The furthest it sent postal workers hiking was to the hamlet of Grise Fiord, a small Inuit hamlet in the Qikiqtaaluk region north of the Arctic Circle in Canada. Presumably, two different gift recipients were happy to open Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The very last gift that Amazon delivered in time for Christmas, ordered by a procrastinator in Woodinville, Washington DC, was an Apple Mac Mini. It was ordered at 1:41 pm on Christmas Eve and arrived, via Amazon’s Local Express Delivery, at 8:04 pm that night.