As Amazon.com Inc’s shares saw a rise of 1.6 percent in afternoon trade after the top online retailer called its latest holiday sale its best ever, the company shipped more than 1 billion items worldwide this holiday season.
Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon's worldwide consumer division, in a press release that the Amazon Echo home assistant and its smaller version, Echo Dot, topped the best-sellers list.
"Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock," he said.
The company said that compared to last year's holiday season, its sales of voice-controlled Echo devices were nine times more. Amazon did not disclose comparable sales figures from a year earlier.
"It's all relative to other numbers that they’ve never told us," said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research.
Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy estimated in a research note that Amazon likely sold between 4 million and 5 million devices this year to date with Alexa, the voice-controlled assistant on the Echo. From playing music to turning on Christmas lights, shoppers can command the Echo to perform a host of tasks.
"While Amazon's device sales are still relatively small growth drivers currently, we believe the proliferation of these devices will drive more ubiquitous use of Amazon services over time," said Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian in a note, pointing to customers ordering more items by speaking to the Echo.
While Dec. 19 was the busiest shopping day this holiday season, the company said that more than 72 percent of Amazon's customers worldwide shopped through mobile devices.
"Prime customers are spending twice as much as other consumers using Amazon and helping to fuel rapid revenue growth that few retailers with only a fraction of Amazon's revenues are able to generate," Retail Metrics President Ken Perkins wrote in a note last week.
Perkins said that more pressure would be put on rival retailers as they try to garner in-store and web traffic by Alexa and Amazon Dash, a one-button ordering service, are making it easier for shoppers to "skip the trip".
The company said that Nintendo Co Ltd's Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon role-playing video games, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Gear VR virtual reality headset, 72-pack Keurig K-Cups and the movie "Finding Dory" were among the other best sellers on Amazon.
Amazon shares rose $12.33, or 1.6 percent, trading at $772.92 at 1:58 p.m. EST (18:58 GMT).
(Source:www.reuters.com)
Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon's worldwide consumer division, in a press release that the Amazon Echo home assistant and its smaller version, Echo Dot, topped the best-sellers list.
"Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock," he said.
The company said that compared to last year's holiday season, its sales of voice-controlled Echo devices were nine times more. Amazon did not disclose comparable sales figures from a year earlier.
"It's all relative to other numbers that they’ve never told us," said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research.
Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy estimated in a research note that Amazon likely sold between 4 million and 5 million devices this year to date with Alexa, the voice-controlled assistant on the Echo. From playing music to turning on Christmas lights, shoppers can command the Echo to perform a host of tasks.
"While Amazon's device sales are still relatively small growth drivers currently, we believe the proliferation of these devices will drive more ubiquitous use of Amazon services over time," said Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian in a note, pointing to customers ordering more items by speaking to the Echo.
While Dec. 19 was the busiest shopping day this holiday season, the company said that more than 72 percent of Amazon's customers worldwide shopped through mobile devices.
"Prime customers are spending twice as much as other consumers using Amazon and helping to fuel rapid revenue growth that few retailers with only a fraction of Amazon's revenues are able to generate," Retail Metrics President Ken Perkins wrote in a note last week.
Perkins said that more pressure would be put on rival retailers as they try to garner in-store and web traffic by Alexa and Amazon Dash, a one-button ordering service, are making it easier for shoppers to "skip the trip".
The company said that Nintendo Co Ltd's Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon role-playing video games, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Gear VR virtual reality headset, 72-pack Keurig K-Cups and the movie "Finding Dory" were among the other best sellers on Amazon.
Amazon shares rose $12.33, or 1.6 percent, trading at $772.92 at 1:58 p.m. EST (18:58 GMT).
(Source:www.reuters.com)
