Amazon Echo Holiday Sales Skyrocketed 9x Over Last Year As Millions Gifted Alexa Devices

Now, Amazon is putting up some hardware sales numbers (although still vague) to confirm the sellout reports that we’ve been seeing across the country. For starters, Amazon says that the Echo family of devices saw sales increase 9x during the holiday compared to the same time last year. The company also confirms that “millions of Alexa devices sold worldwide this year.”

Amazon has traditionally been cagey with its hardware sales, so that “millions” figure could be as low as 2 million or as high as 9 to 10 million. Regardless, the quick ramp-up in sales is definitely a good sign for the company.

"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,” said Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO for the Worldwide Consumer division. “Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock.”

In addition to tooting its own horn about Alexa-based products, Amazon also stated that the four top-selling devices across the entire site during the holidays were the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick, Fire Tablet, and Echo – all Amazon hardware. And here is a short selection of stats that Amazon provided to detail how the holidays unfolded (the full list can be found in the source link below):

• Home Alone and Elf were the most requested holiday movies with Alexa.
• Alexa helped play millions of holiday songs this year, and the top songs were Jingle Bells (1999 - Remaster) by Frank Sinatra, All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey and Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano.
• More than one billion items shipped worldwide with Prime and Fulfillment by Amazon this holiday season.
• December 23, 2016 was the biggest day ever for Prime Now deliveries worldwide and members ordered 3x more items compared to last year with one and two hour delivery worldwide. Echo Dot, Amazon Echo, Fire TV Stick and Oreo Cookies were some of the most popular items ordered that day in the U.S.
• More than 72 percent of Amazon customers worldwide shopped using a mobile device this holiday.