Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced its best-ever holiday season Tuesday, shipping more than one billion items worldwide.
The firm said it outpaced sales goals for its flagship Amazon Echo family this December, with sales up over nine times compared to last year’s holiday season. The online vendor sold millions of Alexa devices worldwide. Amazon Fire TV Stick and Fire tablet were also top-sellers this year.
“Echo and Echo Dot were the best-selling products across Amazon this year, and we’re thrilled that millions of new customers will be introduced to Alexa as a result,” CEO Worldwide Consumer, Amazon, Jeff Wilke said in a Tuesday press release. “We couldn’t have made this holiday season possible for customers without the dedication and hard work of our customer service, transportation, and fulfillment associates along with our carrier partners.”
The online vendor was so successful in selling its Amazon Echo this holiday season, that it had to halt shipping of the product because it ran out of inventory.
Amazon experienced other historic achievements during the 2016 Christmas season. More Amazon users than ever tried Amazon Prime, a premium service which allows users free two-day shipping, TV and music streaming services. Marking the biggest day ever for Prime Now deliveries worldwide, Dec. 23 witnessed three times more orders compared to last the same time last year. The company also logged their fastest Prime delivery on Christmas Eve, delivering a gift to a Prime member in Redondo Beach, California in just 13 minutes.
U.S. consumer confidence reached its highest level in December since August 2011, as Americans report being more upbeat about the future of the economy than any other time in the past 13 years. It may come as no surprise then that so many people purchased gifts through Amazon. Like Amazon, the United Parcel Service said Tuesday that it expects to ship record volumes of packages through the first week of January.
Shares of Amazon are up 14 percent in 2016, outpacing the S&P 500 by 3 percent.
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