Image source: Amazon.com.
When you're Amazon.com (AMZN +1.25%) and you want more Black Fridays, you celebrate Cyber Monday. And when you're Amazon and you want more Cyber Mondays... you create your own holiday. If this sounds like a potential flop, think again. Amazon's "Prime Day" on Monday was Amazon's biggest day ever.
Here are the impressive facts behind Amazon's second Prime Day.
1. Even though its first Prime Day last year beat the company's Black Friday sales record, Prime Day 2016 still crushed last year's Prime Day record. Global customer orders soared 60% compared with Prime Day 2015. So much for a one hit wonder.
2. In Amazon's most important market, the U.S., orders soared 50% compared with Prime Day 2015.
3. Amazon devices were hot sellers. It was a record prime day for Fire TV, Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, and Alexa-enabled devices, or devices that use Amazon's intelligent voice assistant.
4. Global Fire TV orders were up two and a half times compared with Prime Day last year, and Fire TV Stick was the best-selling Amazon device overall.
5. In the U.S., total Amazon device sales were up three times compared with Prime Day 2015.
6. Notably, the e-commerce giant's 2014-introduced Amazon Echo continued to be a hot performer for the company. The flagship Alexa-enabled Bluetooth speaker with far-field voice recognition saw two and a half times more U.S. orders this year than in Prime Day 2015.
Amazon Echo. Image source: Amazon.com.
7. With the help of Amazon Echo and its portable Amazon Tap counterpart -- the company's two Alexa-enabled devices -- Amazon's Alexa voice-assistant was a busy AI on Prime Day. Using their voice, members purchased about one Alexa-exclusive deal per second in the United States.
8. Mobile was critical to Amazon's Prime Day 2016 success. Global mobile orders were up more than two times compared with Prime Day 2015.
9. Amazon sold a whopping 90,000 TVs, more than 2 million toys, and over 1 million shoes on Prime Day 2016.
10. Amazon and its sellers were liberal with discounts. On average, Prime members saved more than double over what they did on Prime Day 2015.
What is Prime Day?
According to Amazon, it's the "best deal in the history of shopping." While this is quite a claim, the facts behind Prime Day 2016 suggest there's at least some truth to the statement. It is definitely Amazon's best shopping day. Indeed, it was its biggest shopping day in history.
Prime Day happens once every year, and Prime Day 2016 was the company's second Prime Day. As its name suggests, Prime Day's deals are exclusively available to Amazon's Prime members. An Amazon Prime membership costs either $99 per year or $10.99 per month and is most famous for its free two-day delivery and, more recently, free same-day shopping in a growing number of markets.
"With thousands of amazing deals worldwide, members get exclusive access to the biggest discounts on things they need, things they want and everything in between -- across nearly every product category," Amazon says on its website.
Amazon strategically schedules the holiday right in the middle of what is traditionally a slow summer news cycle.
The optimistic update from Amazon on Prime Day is good news for investors. Investors will take as much optimistic news about the business as they can get to help justify the stock's nearly 70% gain during the past 12 months.
