Kindle 3 Beats Harry Potter Book As Bestselling Product In Amazon's History

This isn’t a big surprise. Amazon has just released a statement reporting that the new, third-generation Kindle has now surpassed ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ as the best-selling product in Amazon’s history. Of course, Amazon doesn’t reveal the total number of Kindles sold (Bloomberg recently reported that 8 million Kindles will be sold this year compared to 2.4 million units sold in 2009).

On Christmas Day, Amazon says that more people turned on new Kindles for the first time, downloaded more Kindle Buy Once, Read Everywhere apps, and purchased more Kindle books than on any other day in history. And Amazon’s worldwide fulfillment network shipped over 9 million units across all product categories.

The company also announced that on its peak day, Nov. 29, customers ordered more than 13.7 million items worldwide across all product categories, which is a record-breaking 158 items per second. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that the company is also seeing that many of the people who bought Kindles also own an LCD tablet.

From the release:

Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions. They report preferring Kindle for reading because it weighs less, eliminates battery anxiety with its month-long battery life, and has the advanced paper-like Pearl e-ink display that reduces eye-strain, doesn’t interfere with sleep patterns at bedtime, and works outside in direct sunlight, an important consideration especially for vacation reading. Kindle’s $139 price point is a key factor — it’s low enough that people don’t have to choose.”

Of course, the sunlight bit is a direct hit at Apple’s iPad, which has visibility issues when used in the sun.

During the holiday season, Amazon days the biggest mobile shopping days for iPad, iPhone and Android users was Sunday, however the biggest mobile shopping day for BlackBerry users was Friday.

In terms of electronics, the Kindle (Wi-Fi); Kindle 3G; and Apple iPod touch 8GB were the biggest selling products. Software’s best-sellers were Anime Studio Debut 7; Manga Studio Debut 4; and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. And the best-selling DVD movies were Inception”; “The Blind Side”; and “Toy Story 3.”

It’s great that the Kindle 3 has reached that milestone, but Jeff, we’re still waiting for an official number of total Kindles sold.