Amazon sold more than 4M Kindles in December alone

Christmas Day marked the biggest day for Kindle book downloads ever

December was a great month for Amazon. As of Thursday morning, Amazon sold well over 4 million Kindle devices for the last month of 2011 -- that is more than 1 million per week. Amazon was also able to proudly announce that the #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books of the year were both released independently by their authors through the Kindle Direct Publishing system.

 “In a huge milestone for independent publishing, we’d also like to congratulate Darcie Chan, the author of ‘The Mill River Recluse,’ and Chris Culver, the author of ‘The Abbey,’ for writing two of the best-selling Kindle books of the year,”  Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Earlier this month, analysts predicted that Amazon's Kindle Fire would show huge numbers this holiday shopping season and place it in the number two spot in the tablet market -- and the Amazon announcement Thursday is showing the strength of those bets.

Various Kindle devices held the top three spots on the Amazon.com best seller charts – with  #1: Kindle Fire; #2: Kindle Touch; #3: Kindle. Kindle devices were also the best-selling products on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es and Amazon.it this holiday season.

On the days between Black Friday and Christmas day, Amazon also saw Kindle book purchases balloon 175% from to the same period in 2010.

And it looks like all the new Kindle owners spent their time on Christmas Day downloading new content for their devices because that single day was the biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads.

Amazon said this was a record-breaking year for the Kindle family in terms of sales but continues to be vague on the exact number of sales or downloads seen in this highly competitive market.

The Amazon stock on Thursday morning was sharing near $169.05 (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Other interesting facts about Amazon's vibrant year:

Amazon customers purchased enough copies of Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” book to create a stack taller than Mt. Everest.

The cumulative weight of the Bowflex 552 Adjustable Dumbbells purchased by Amazon customers would outweigh more than 70 adult elephants.

If you unfolded and stacked each pair of jeans purchased by Amazon customers this holiday, the height would be 2,500 times taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Amazon customers purchased enough sweaters to outfit each of Santa’s reindeer during Christmas Eve deliveries for the next 14,000 years.

Amazon customers purchased enough copies of Just Dance 3 to give 15 copies to each person who participated in setting the world record for simultaneous dancing.

Amazon customers purchased enough HeatMax HotHands Handwarmers to give a pair to each resident of Iceland.

Amazon customers purchased enough Rory’s Story Cubes to give a cube to each person watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop live at Times Square.Amazon's best-selling video games were: Just Dance 3; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3; and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Best-selling Amazon MP3: “100 Classic Christmas Songs” by Various Artists; “Mylo Xyloto” by Coldplay; and “A Very She & Him Christmas” by She & Him.

Best-selling wireless devices on Amazon: Motorola DROID RAZR 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless); Samsung Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G Android Phone (Sprint); and Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android Phone (AT&T).

Best-selling Apps through Amazon: Angry Birds (Ad-Free); TETRIS; and Pandora Internet Radio.