Christmas Amazon Winners: the Kindle, e-books, Blu-ray Players, the iPod Touch

As the dust settles on 2009′s last big shopping spree (the last 3 weeks of December), Amazon.com reveals the big winners — Amazon‘s very own Kindle e-book reader, e-books over physical books, Blu-ray players, and the iPod Touch — to name a few. Engadget.com picks up on a few Kindle milestones here:

We’re still not about say the e-book reader industry has branched out beyond the infancy stage, but one of its flagship products certainly has reason to celebrate. Amazon has announced it’s hit some pretty big milestones with the Kindle. The two bullet points it’s currently touting loudest is that the reader has become “the most gifted item” in the company’s history — quite an achievement given the size of the online retailer, but what’s missing here is any quantitative sales data to give us even a ballpark of the number of units sold. The other big news is that on Christmas Day (we’re guessing not Christmas Eve, else the press release surely would’ve mentioned it, too), e-book sales actually outsold physical books.

Read the full article at Engadget.com.

The Kindle - Amazon's Most Gifted Item, ever

Oh yeah, a bit of bad news for hardbounds and paperbacks as a whole — on Christmas Day, Amazon sold more Kindle e-books than traditional books. We say, “Meh.”  I guess this would be logical follow through from all the Kindle’s they sold — being that the Kindle is Amazon’s most gifted item ever.

Winners all – The 8GB iPod Touch, the LG BD270 Blu-ray Player, the ASUS Eee PC Netbook

Also, we hate it when Press Release writers try to get creative. Things like this usually reek of “Let’s not give them the solid figures. Instead let’s give them a nice image in their heads to play with.” Check out this statement from Amazon’s news release:

Amazon customers purchased so many Blu-ray disc players that if you lined them up side to side, they would stretch for more than 27 miles.

A mile has… wait… 63,360 inches. So, if a standard Blu-ray player’s length is… you get the idea? Nevertheless, we do appreciate the heralding of the increasing momentum that Blu-ray technology is gaining. Blu-ray drives also posted a rise in holiday sales compared to last year.

According to the news release the 8GB iPod Touch was the next big winner in gadget sales. The Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board was the leader in the video games category, followed by The New Super Mario Bros., and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The most bought DVD and Blu-ray movies were Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, and Up.

Here are a few more “creative” facts from Amazon’s PR crew:

• Amazon customers purchased enough fruit cake to equal the weight of a 1967 Volkswagen Bug.
• For the holiday time period alone, Amazon customers purchased enough shoot-and-share camcorders to supply 50 years’ worth of non-stop YouTube watching.
• Amazon customers bought enough Levi’s jeans to clothe everyone at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
• During the 2009 holiday season, Amazon customers bought enough 8 GB iPod touches to play 442 years of continuous music.
• If all the computers customers purchased this holiday were stacked one on top of the other, they would be more than twice as high as Mt. Everest.

Read the full news release here.