AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By Chris Wack

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) said Thursday that the 2019 holiday season was record-breaking for the company, saying billions of items were ordered worldwide and tens of millions of Amazon Devices were purchased worldwide.

The online retailer said some of the best-selling products and brands this holiday season were the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and the Echo Show 5.

Amazon said the most popular departments in its stores in the U.S. were toys, fashion, home and beauty, with more than half a billion total items ordered.

The company also said that this holiday season, it added more than 250,000 full and part-time seasonal roles across its global network, with the company now employing 750,000 employees worldwide.

Amazon also said its independent third-party sellers, mostly small and medium-sized businesses, saw record sales, with worldwide unit sales seeing double-digit year-over-year growth, surpassing a billion items sold in Amazon's Stores, and in one week alone, more than 5 million new customers started Prime free trials or began paid memberships worldwide.

The company also said Prime members ordered more than double the number of grocery items this holiday season compared to last year.

Write to Chris Wack at chris.wack@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 26, 2019 12:52 ET (17:52 GMT)

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