Amazon Sells ‘Well Over’ 1 Million Kindles a Week in December

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), the largest Internet retailer, said it sold “well over” 1 million Kindles a week in December, with record demand led by its Kindle Fire tablet.

The top three sellers on Amazon’s website were the Kindle Fire and two electronic readers, the Kindle Touch and Kindle, Seattle-based Amazon said today in a statement. Gifting of Kindle books rose 175 percent from a year earlier in the period from Nov. 25 to Christmas Day, Amazon said without providing sales data.

The company introduced the Kindle Fire, which has a 7-inch display and sells for less than half the price of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s least-expensive iPad, on Sept. 28 in a bid to erode Apple’s dominance. Amazon is releasing a Fire update to improve performance, make touch navigation easier and let users choose what items are displayed, after some users complained.

Amazon fell 3.2 percent to $168.35 at 9:38 a.m. New York time. The shares declined 3.4 percent this year before today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at bjinks1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net