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Amazon sold over 1 billion items this holiday season

That is a lot of Prime boxes.

Tech

Posted on Dec 27, 2016   Updated on May 25, 2021, 7:54 am CDT

If this holiday season is any indication, Amazon is growing faster than you could possibly imagine. 

The online retail giant boasts its best holiday season yet, shipping more than 1 billion items over the past few months. That’s more than five times the number of items the company moved last year.

And if things weren’t sweet enough, the company manufactures its highest-selling product, the Echo and Echo Dot. The company shipped nine times more of its devices this year than it did over the same period last year. In fact, keeping the smart speaker in stock is Amazon’s biggest issue. The products have been sold out for days leading up to the holidays, with the Echo not going back in stock until Jan. 26. The Echo Dot became available earlier today.

According to Amazon, Dec. 19 was the peak worldwide shipping day during the holiday season, and Dec. 23 was the biggest day ever for its Prime service, with members ordering three times more items this year than last.

Amazon says 72 percent of those purchases were made with a mobile device, and shopping from the company’s mobile app increased 56 percent. If those stats aren’t insane enough, Amazon customers worldwide purchased about 46 electronics per second using a mobile device on Cyber Monday.

The e-commerce site continues to push automation by launching dozens of robot-enabled facilities over the past few years. It now has 45,000 robotics units working alongside human Amazon employees in more than 20 fulfillment centers.

The company included a number of interesting facts with its holiday update announcement:

  • Amazon Prime members in Dallas, Texas, ordered more items with Prime Now than any other city in the U.S. this holiday season.
  • The last Prime same-day delivery order from Amazon.com that was delivered in time for Christmas was ordered at 10:23 a.m. on December 24, 2016. The order included Venum Contender Boxing Gloves, and the package was delivered to a Prime member in Richmond, Virginia at 2:42 pm—the same day.
  • The fastest Prime Now delivery on Christmas Eve took 13 minutes and was delivered at 9:05pm to a Prime member in Redondo Beach, California. The order included a Tile Slim Item Finder and a Tile Mate Key Finder.
  • The most-watched movie (non-Amazon Original) streaming on Prime Video this holiday was Eye in the Sky.
  • Amazon.com customers purchased enough 4K TVs to reach the peak of Mount Everest more than nine times.
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*First Published: Dec 27, 2016, 2:01 pm CST