Humble Brag: Amazon Breaks Down Its Record Holiday Season

As many investors had expected, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN rang in its biggest holiday season ever.

What You Need To Know

Customers bought more than 1 billion items across the world fromThanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Amazon said in a press release. Small businesses and entrepreneurs who sell their products on Amazon's platform accounted for nearly 140 million items that were ordered.

Amazon's own hardware products — including Alexa-enabled devices, Echo Dot and Fire TV Sticks — were ranked as the best-selling products from any manufacturer in any category across the entire Amazon platform. In one week alone, more than 4 million new Prime members began a paid membership or initiated a free trial.

Why It's Important

"We're excited that people continued to join Prime this holiday, to take advantage of more fast and free shipping options plus new convenient delivery like Amazon Key, as well as early access to Lightning Deals and unlimited streaming of TV shows and movies, including Prime Originals and more," Jeff Wilke, Amazon's worldwide consumer CEO, said in a statement. "Thank you to the millions of customers and hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees all around the world who made this holiday better than ever before. We look forward to another great year ahead."

What's Next?

Amazon's strong holiday season is likely to keep many investors excited over its future prospects. Here are some notable metrics from the shopping season report that may support the e-commerce behemoth's growth story: 

Alexa customers used their device to turn on their holiday lights more than 1 million times.

• More than 6,000 trailers and 32 Amazon Air planes were active in the U.S. during the holiday season.
• In Europe, 10 fulfillment centers were able to complete more than 1 million packages in one day.
• The top five items ordered through a mobile device include: the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and the TP-Link Smart Plug.
• Shopping on the Amazon app increased by nearly 70 percent.
• The last Prime Now order that was completed in time for Christmas was delivered in 58 minutes at 11:58 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

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Photo courtesy of Amazon.