Amazon said Thursday that it sold more than one million
Kindles a week in December with the new Kindle Fire
tablet computer its top-selling item.
"2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family
as customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires and
millions of Kindle e-readers, " the company said.
"Authors also continue to benefit from the success of
Kindle ? the #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books
released in 2011 were both published independently by
their authors using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)."
Amazon said it sold "well over" one million Kindle
devices per week in December with the Kindle Touch and
basic Kindle taking the top two spots after the Fire.
Amazon said the Kindle is its best-selling item in
Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain in addition
to the United States.
The company said "gifting" of Kindle books between
November 25 and Christmas Day rose 175 percent compared
to the holiday period last year with Christmas Day the
biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads.
2011 was also a record-breaking holiday season for
businesses that sell on Amazon. Third-party sellers
experienced record holiday growth: the number of
sellers who exceeded $5,000 in sales during the holiday
season increased 44 percent year-over-year. For the
year, businesses on Amazon sold hundreds of millions of
units worth billions of dollars worldwide.
The Kindle Fire costs $199, less than half the price of
the cheapest iPad from tablet market leader Apple.
Kindle Fire has a seven-inch (17.78-centimeter) screen,
smaller than the iPad's 9.7 inches, connects to the Web
using Wi-Fi and is powered by Google's Android
software. It does not have a camera or the 3G
connectivity featured on other tablets but it gives
buyers easy access to Amazon's online store, which
sells books, music, movies, television shows, games and
other content.