Amazon says the 2016 holiday shopping season was its “best-ever season” for its family of Alexa-enabled devices. Sales of the voice-responsive devices, which feature a built-in natural speech assistant — much like Apple’s Siri — sold well, despite a few issues the company had keeping devices in stock.
Amazon’s lineup of Alexa-powered devices, which include the Echo Dot, Echo Tap, Fire TV Stick, Fire Tablet, and Amazon Echo – saw sales grow more than 9 times year-over-year versus the 2015 holiday season.
As MacTrast reported on Monday, Amazon Alexa was one of the top-trending app searches in the iOS App Store in the period immediately following Christmas morning, indicating a number of iOS users received an Echo, Dot, or other Alexa-based device as a holiday gift.
In their press release, Amazon also reported other statistics about the 2016 holiday shopping season.
Holidays with Alexa:
- Alexa helped mix hundreds of thousands of cocktails this holiday season with Tom Collins and Manhattans being the most requested drinks from skills like The Bartender, Mixologist and DrinkBoy.
- Chocolate chip and sugar cookies were the favorite recipes from Alexa skills like Food Network and Allrecipes.
- Home Alone and Elf were the most requested holiday movies with Alexa.
- Alexa helped play millions of holiday songs this year, and the top songs were Jingle Bells (1999 – Remaster) by Frank Sinatra, All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey and Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano.
- What was Alexa asked to cook? The most popular cooking tips requested on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were turkey, prime rib and chocolate chip cookies.
- Who played the most holiday music with Alexa? Customers in Seattle, New York and Chicago asked “Alexa, play holiday music” more than any other city in the U.S.
- Who turned on Christmas Lights the most with Alexa? Customers in Seattle, San Diego and New York asked, “Alexa, turn on Christmas lights” more than any other city in the U.S.
- What games were the most requested with Alexa this holiday? Alexa entertained families with popular games like Jeopardy!, Twenty Questions and The Magic Door.
Amazon Prime:
- More than one billion items shipped worldwide with Prime and Fulfillment by Amazon this holiday season.
- More people around the world tried Prime this holiday season than any previous year.
- The fastest Prime Now delivery on Christmas Eve took 13 minutes and was delivered at 9:05 p.m. to a Prime member in Redondo Beach, California. The order included a Tile Slim Item Finder and a Tile Mate Key Finder.
- December 23, 2016 was the biggest day ever for Prime Now deliveries worldwide and members ordered 3x more items compared to last year with one and two hour delivery worldwide. Echo Dot, Amazon Echo, Fire TV Stick and Oreo Cookies were some of the most popular items ordered that day in the U.S.
- The last Prime Now order delivered in time for the holiday was delivered at 11:59 p.m. on December 24, 2016 to a Prime member in Irvine, California. The order included a Heated Mattress Pad, NyQuil and Afrin Nasal Spray.
- 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 FREE 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 was delivered to a Prime member in Richmond, Virginia at 2:42 p.m. – the same day.
Mobile Shopping:
- More than 72 percent of Amazon customers worldwide shopped using a mobile device this holiday.
- Shopping on the free Amazon mobile app grew by 56 percent this holiday, worldwide.
- On Cyber Monday, Amazon customers worldwide purchased about 46 electronics per second on a mobile device.
- On Cyber Monday, Amazon customers worldwide purchased about 36 toys per second on a mobile device.
Other landmark stats included the most streamed Amazon Original Series over the holidays was Goliath, the most streamed Amazon Original Movie over the holidays was Love & Friendship, and the most watched TV series (non-Amazon Original) streaming on Prime Video this holiday was The Night Manager.
Music listeners streamed three times more holiday music via Amazon Music than they did in 2015, with It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Andy Williams topping the charts as the most streamed holiday song, and Michael Bublé – Christmas was the most played holiday album.
Amazon also released a batch of “holiday fun facts” that, while rather goofy at times, do a decent job of illustrating the volume of merchandise the online retailer pushes out its warehouse doors each holiday season.
Holiday Fun Facts:
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Hamilton: the Revolution collectible books and Hamilton albums to give every patron at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City a copy for 96 consecutive shows.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough 4K TVs to reach the peak of Mount Everest more than 9 times.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough KitchenAid Mixers this holiday to make nearly 7.5 million cookies at once.
- On Cyber Monday 2016, Handmade at Amazon saw a 200 percent increase in sales versus Cyber Monday 2015.
- If each Amazon.com customer who purchased Pokémon Sun and Moon this holiday spent at least an hour a day playing the game since its release, our customers would have spent the equivalent of more than 24 thousand lunar cycles capturing Pokémon.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough copies of the Harry Potter: Complete 8-Film Collection to play consecutively for more than 300 years.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Hasbro Connect 4 Games this holiday season to give each resident of Dallas, Texas a single disc from the game.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Sphero Star Wars BB-8 App-Controlled Robots to roll as a relay around the Earth more than two times before the batteries run out.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Razor Jett Heel Wheels this holiday to roll a fully loaded space shuttle to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Wilson footballs this holiday to give every fan at a sold-out Seahawks game a chance to throw a pass like Russell Wilson.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough golf balls this holiday that, if lined up, would equal the length of Pebble Beach golf course four times over.
- Amazon.com customers purchased more Marvin the Moose dog toys this holiday than the number of actual moose in New England.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough copies of The Secret Life of Pets that if each one were a tennis ball, they would fill Central Parkover two and a half feet deep.
- Amazon.com delivered enough men’s jeans to fill one Olympic-size swimming pool.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough ugly Christmas sweaters for every seat at all three NCAA College Football Playoff games.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough running shoes to run 18,603 times around the globe.
- Amazon.com customers purchased 2.5 million watches – that is a watch purchased every 1.5 seconds this holiday season.
- Amazon.com customers purchased 10,451 carats of diamonds, which is equal to 6.5 Russian Kokoshnik Tiaras, one of the Queen of England’s most famous tiaras.
- Amazon.com customers purchased the weight of a grizzly bear in gold and the weight of a rhinoceros in silver.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Etekcity camp lanterns this holiday to replace the beacon lights on top of the Eiffel Tower nearly 11 times.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough luggage to fill 20 Boeing 747 airplanes.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough electric vehicle home charging kits to make 2,196 emissions-free trips around the globe in a year.
- Amazon.com customers purchased enough Char-Broil’s The Big Easy Turkey Fryers to cook 225,000 pounds of turkey.
