Amazon said Monday that Black Friday resulted in the company's best-ever sales for its Kindle devices, with the Kindle Fire tablet leading the pack.
"Black Friday was the best ever for the Kindle family—customers purchased 4X as many Kindle devices as they did last Black Friday— and last year was a great year," Dave Limp, vice president for Amazon Kindle, said in a statement. "In addition, we're seeing a lot of customers buying multiple Kindles—one for themselves and others as gifts—we expect this trend to continue on Cyber Monday and through the holiday shopping season."
The company did not release exact sales figures. In late October, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos said Sept. 28, the day the Fire was announced, was its "biggest order day ever for Kindle," with double the orders from the previous Kindle launch. Earlier this month, an analyst said Amazon took 500,000 pre-orders for the Fire.
Target, meanwhile, said that the Kindle Fire was the store's best-selling tablet on Black Friday. The retailer also offers devices like the Motorola Xoom, Asus Eee Pad, and Acer Iconia.
Best Buy also saw brisk sales. "If this Black Friday was any indication, they are only getting hotter as we get into the shopping season," said Wendy Fritz, senior vice president of computing, tablets, and e-readers at Best Buy.
One of Amazon's Black Friday deals was a discount on its larger Kindle DX—from $379 to $259—and that discount continues today for Cyber Monday.
The Kindle Fire, meanwhile, is $199, while the original Kindle starts at $79. The Kindle Touch Wi-Fi sells for $99 and its 3G counterpart is $149, though they are all the ad-supported "Special Offers" versions. Versions without Special Offers are available for $109 (non-touch), $139 (Kindle Touch Wi-Fi), and $189 (Kindle Touch 3G).
Overall, Black Friday spending was up 16.4 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation. Shoppers spent about $52.4 billion, with online shopping making up 37.8 percent of those purchases.
ComScore found that online retailers "saw a banner day," with e-purchases up 15 percent between November 1–25, 2011 versus the same time period last year.
If you still have some shopping to do today, check out 15 Can't-Miss Cyber Monday Deals for 2011.