Kindle most gifted item in Amazon's history, e-books outsell physical tomes on Christmas Day
By Ross Miller 
posted December 27th 2009 9:30AM
posted December 27th 2009 9:30AM
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. Those brand new Kindle owners needed something to read, right? It'll be interesting to see if that momentum is maintained through next year, especially with some major publishers starting to show some teeth with digital delays. The Kindle bits were all part of Amazon's annual post-holiday statistical breakdown, so in case you're wondering, besides Kindle, the company is claiming its other top-selling electronics were the 8GB iPod Touch and Garmin nuvi260W, and in the wireless department the honor goes to Nokia's unlocked 5800 XpressMusic, Plantronic's 510 Bluetooth headset, and AT&T's edition of the BlackBerry Bold 9700.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
I have a Kindle 2, but i'm getting a Sony Reader touch pretty soon.
@Rob Conway Glad to hear it. For once it's not Sony screwing over customers with proprietary formats like the Kindle is. It's just a shame they don't get as much press as the Kindle and especially the Nook.
@Rob Conway Why?
@Dapke36 I like that the Sony supports more formats, i like the touch functionality in the screen, it seems more resonsive in general, and i also like that it comes in different colors as opposed to the white like my Kindle that has been getting a yellow tinge to it.
@Rob Conway
I'm waiting for the Apple MagicSlate. Multitouch it three times and all your wishes will come true. Steve was extremely satisfied, so the MagicSlate will be perfect. You can't often find perfection for the price of a mere $800 plus tax. Forget Kindle and Sony eReaders. They were yesterday's news.
If they don't want to share numbers then they cannot be that good, I also think physical books don't sell very well on Xmas day because you will be waiting a good wekk for them to arrive, ebooks and mp3 downloads are instant and one of the few things you can buy and recieve on Xmas day.
Amazon are pretty good at playing with numbers it's just a pity no-one at Engagdet makes any attempt to see through the BS
Everyone who got a Kindle bought a book to test the device. No one bought a book on Christmas Day, they were all preoccupied playing with their gifts. This is a crap stat.
@JoeRodricks
Exactly. Were physical bookstores even open on Christmas day?
Even Walmart was closed on Christmas day!
@JoeRodricks
It's still a milestone, not incredibly significant but a milestone none the less.
@Michael Scrip
They weren't comparing their ebook sales to all physical book store sales. They only stated that Kindle ebook sales beat out physical books sold at Amazon.
@JoeRodricks
Doesn't the kindle come with some free reading material to test it with anymore? You used to get some free books with it as I recall reading.
@LC
Oh... I see now. Thanks.
I would be curious to see how many regular book sales they got on December 25th in previous years. Maybe they sell very few regular books on Christmas day anyway... with the bonus of so many people getting Kindles this year.
It's a nice headline... but I'd love to see the numbers for the rest of the year... or else it's just a fluff statement.
If it's a one-day gain and not a trend... this fact is useless.
I'm sorry, but... what momentum? The sales of Kindle itself ar okay but the e-books outselling paper on Chrstmas Day bit is complete BS. Oh I don't doubt that it happened but how many people jump on the net on Christmas Day itself to buy... books? You're either too busy or waiting for the January sales to start. Whereas Kindle owners (as the article rightly points out) NEED to get a book or two for their shiy new toy to be of any use and are likely to have been gifted credit for that very purpose (in one form or another, even if it's the gift giver saying 'buy a book and I'll pay for it').
If it was really an impressive number Amazon would have published actual figures rather than an empty bullet point. As it is this strikes me as a massive piece of PR for Amazon and very little else.
@BOFH Not to mention, none of the brick & mortar bookstores were open on Christmas day. Paper books are still something a lot of people buy in person.
@FuturePastNow
This statistic was only about Amazon sales.
I just got a Plantronics 510 headset for Christmas.. my first BT headset and everyone is telling me how terrible I sound when i used it. Must be a bad one... tons of reviews that rave about it so idk. Guess i'll find out how Plantronics replacement policys are!
Try this thread instead
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/25/so-whatd-you-get/
When these came out I could have guaranteed that they wouldn't catch on as much as they did, but again, I have been proven wrong. Congrats to Amazon.
You have no idea how well these are selling bc amazon STILL won't release actual numbers of units sold! Until they do, no one knows how well they're selling except Jeff bezos.
@DTJ
Interesting, I had no idea that they weren't releasing the numbers. I still partially feel that most people enjoy having a book or newspaper physically in their hands, it's also nice to see a shelf full of old books rather than a Kindle, but to each his own I guess.
@(Unverified)
I just realized that I missed that part of the article.
When something is selling well you tell the world the numbers. Amazon doesn't, which means something is fishy. I find it VERY hard to believe that electronic books are selling more than paper books. Kindly hasn't even been around that long. How long did DVDs take to replace VHS? Amazon is blowing some hot air here.
Of course eBooks would outsell actual books on Christmas Day. You can get an eBook ANYTIME but if you ordered a book online you wouldn't do it on Christmas day because its pointless.
@Alex R Unless of course you had a Nook on Xmas day ;)
If they released a real UK version of the Kindle, I would buy it. I refuse to buy into some half-arsed attempt at international distribution.
Dear Amazon,
If you don't want to share sales numbers for the Kindle, then SHUT THE HELL UP about how great it's selling.
You sound like a desperate, stupid marketing company trying to tell everyone how great your product is when it's failing (maybe it's not, but without the sales data, then how do we know?)
@TailsToo
Looks like someone is butt-hurt.
...wow. i knew print media was on its way out, but this is nothing short of amazing!
That is ONE day's worth of sales.
Let's compare the entire year's worth of sales of tree-books versus e-books.
I personally find nothing interesting or exciting about e-books. Maybe it's because the technology is still so new, but I find e-books to be as a silly/stupid as all the electronic note-taking devices (like the Palm Pilot) were back in the 90s. Sure they had their uses, but for actually jotting-down information quickly, a $1 pencil and paper notepad was vastly superior.
And still is. I've returned to a paper invoice book because it is much faster
actually compared to powering up a laptop, opening MYOB, entering new client details, fussing with particulars, printing to PDF and then emailing to the client the paper experience is effectively instant.
IT is slow, creates more work and runs te general risk of not even working.
@(Unverified)
Absolutely. Technology (sometimes) creates more work than it solves.
Sure, there are times where the computerized way is vastly superior - things like CAD versus a drafting board, but sometimes the cheapest and easiest way is by far the way that has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, yet many people flock to these gadgets because it's the latest and greatest thing.
I thought about getting a Kindle, then I realized I could buy about 50 used paperbacks off Amazon for the same price. Between those and my local library I'll have enough to read for quite a long time.
@Aleman
And by the time you finish reading, there is a decent chance something could have gone wrong with the Kindle.
Wow. That isn't a big deal. I'm just guessing that the people who got Kindles immediately got content for it rather than have a paperweight. Big Whoop.
Amaon is a great business, but their Kindle mentality, maybe is too strong. I'm disabled, thus buying a hardware Kindle, I can't afford. But I downloaded Kindle for PC, BETA, and put it on my pc. I decided, my first buy, would be Stephen King's Under the Dome, which on Dec. 23, was $7.20, for a Dec. 24 release. I waited, not sure how the download part would work, and bought the ebook, on Dec. 24. Great..., except the price was now $9.99, almost $2.00 hgher. Okay, I bought it, but simply, could not get it on the Kindle for PC software. All I got, was a UNABLE TO CONNECT error message. I finally got back in touch by email, and the answer, was to UNINSTALL it, from within it's software, and reinstall it again. I did, and went to get a fresh download, I saw I was already REGISTERED, so I felt I'd have to UNREGISTER, install Kindle to PC again, and REREGISTER. Only thing was, after I reinstalled, I couldn't reregister. After lots of frustrations, Christmas Day, I used the call number, for tech support, and it was finally established, the Kindle for PC software, is still 'a bit buggy', so they credited my payment back to me, which I then took and bought the ebook, from Sony. Their reader software, at least works, but Amazon's failure to prevent situations like this from happening, only hurts their credibility. I had even disabled my McAffee Firewall and Antivirus, in the hope, they were conflicting, but it still would not make contact, to download it to my computer. Has anyone experienced the same situation, or has everyone managed to have it work right. Thanks.
That's very similar to what happened to me when I tried out their Video on Demand service. I never could get it to work, so I said to hell with it and torrented the movie I was trying to watch. Strangely enough, the torrent worked perfectly!
@ffman2152
"Under the Dome" was $7.20 for the pre-order. It sounds like you waited for the release day to order.
@ffman2152
Are you William Shatner? Your, excessive commas, make me, think of him.
@Carld You're right. I didn't know the difference in the tems, only that Stephen King himself, stopped it from being available in ebook, at the same time the hard cover came out. I thought the $7.20, was the price, since there seems to be so much competition between book sellers, but even if it was my misunderstanding on the price, Kindle for PC, didn't work me. Sony's Reader Library, B&N's EReader, Adobe Digital Editions, and Kobo's reader, all work fine, on my pc. As I said, Kindle for PC, is in BETA, so there will be conflicts. I'm just disappointed, it's from Amazon's area, that it happened from.
I really do not understand the appeal of some stupid device that caters to, and attempts to modernize, an ancient and irrelevant medium. For petes sake IT HAS A BLACK AND WHITE SCREEN and its 2010.
I DON'T CARE IF ITS A FANCY SCREEN, IT IS STILL BLACK AND WHITE
@poematik14
A) Your calling books an irrelevant medium doesn't make it true
B) Yes the screen is black and white . . .as are the pages in most every novel I have ever read
Display efficiency : infinite.
I'd say that's pretty modern.
I've had my Kindle for two years. It's the best piece of electronics gear I've ever bought.
"most gifted item"
That implies that it has talent! Or do you mean "the most popular gift"?
Strictly speaking gifted comes from the concept people were 'given a special quality', presumably they mean by some mythical god character, so the word gifted describes being given something, and although it's not often used in this context can you really say with certainty it's wrong?
I'm with Carld. Two year owner. Fantastic way to read. I sill still buy a few books, ie art, comic art... but as for publishers kicking back publishing dates for ebooks as a way to boost hardback sales... dude, I'd rather read out of a Kindle than a hardback.... and it's not like a movie/dvd thing where you get a lot more immersive experience at the theatre. You publishers are going to have to learn the hard way, like the music industry did, that there has been a paradigm shift in your industry. Adapt or die.
@Groggle
I don't even understand why publishers would delay ebook releases. There's no manufacturing costs and there is no used market.
@chispito
They think ebook sales are cutting into their more profitable hardback sales. They figure if they delay the ebook then some of those people will buy the hardback.
They are dividing iPods into categories by storage, no doubt.
They are saying 'most gifted' (so bought for 3rd parties), and 'in the company's history' so seeing they sell other stuff we can conclude that either people don't normally buy gifts on amazon or there is something to be observed in the sense that people seem to think kindles are a good gift rather than something they buy themselves, I guess.
And they might BS a bit in what info they release but it does give a handle on some trends to check out to see if that's true, if in general e-readers were a popular gift, and I think that is probably true, don't forget that women talkshow hosts like ellen and oprah advertised them, and I assume others and women's magazines, so that puts them on the radar of the 50% of the population that are female once the buzz started, and so that should have had quite an xmas impact if my logic is correct.