Amazon's hockey-puck-sized smart speaker was its top seller this holiday (AMZN)

pulse

December 27, 2016 4:18 PM

The holiday shopping rush is nearing an end, and to nobody's surprise, it appears to have been a lucrative time for Amazon. More specifically, the e-commerce giant says four of its own devices were the best-selling products on its site over that time.

According to a press release published on Tuesday, Amazon's Echo Dot smart speaker was the top seller for the "2016 holiday" — which Amazon defines as November 1 onward — with the Fire TV Stick media streamer, Fire tablet, and standard Echo speaker following behind.

As usual, Amazon declined to share specific sales figures, so take the boasts with a grain of salt.

That said, the fact that Amazon-made devices were the most popular products on Amazon's site isn't much of a shock. The Fire tablet and Fire TV Stick were two of the three top sellers last holiday, according to the company, both the Echo and Echo Dot have experienced stock shortages this year, and Amazon usually makes links to its products and services very prominent throughout its online store. That the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablet all cost $50 or less likely helped, too.

The larger Echo costs $179.99, though, so its popularity would appear to be more encouraging. A report from the research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners last month estimated that Amazon had sold 5.1 million Echo devices so far.

Amazon, for its part, says that Echo device sales were up nine times over the 2015 holiday season, though that's to be expected with the release of the $50 Echo Dot earlier this year.

The smart-speaker space continues to be one of interest. Google launched its $130 Home speaker — which Amazon does not directly sell on its site — in October, and multiple reports have said that Apple is working on its own Echo competitor as well.

In any case, all four of Amazon's top-selling devices come with its Alexa voice assistant in some form, so it looks as though more than a few families will welcome artificial intelligence into their homes going into 2017. That should make the company happy, given how it's opened up Alexa to an increasing number of third-party devices in the past year.

pulse