San Francisco - There was plenty of post-Christmas cheer at Amazon.com Friday as the leading online retailer announced its most successful holiday season ever. The positive report from the Seattle-based company came in contrast to the generally gloomy performance among US retailers who have failed to persuade consumers to part with their cash despite steep price cuts.
But sales were buzzing at the online retail pioneer, which said it sold 6.3 million items worldwide on December 15, which was its busiest-ever selling day.
The avalanche of orders was coming in at the pace of almost 73 per second, the company said in a statement. Last year Amazon said December 10 was its busiest selling day, when 5.4 million items were ordered.
Amazon said the Nintendo Wii dominated the videogame category, while the best-selling toys included the Eyeclops night vision goggles. Top sellers in consumer electronics included Samsung's 52- inch LCD HDTV, the Apple iPod touch 8 GB and the Acer Aspire One 8.9- inch notebook.
The best-selling DVDs, included Wall-E and The Dark Knight, while top-selling books included The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling and two books from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.
"We are extremely grateful to our customers," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, in a statement.
