Amazon says Prime Day 2016 was ‘biggest day ever’

SEATTLE - Amazon.com called the second incarnation of Prime Day its 'biggest day ever,” as millions of shoppers flocked to the discounted wares sold on the site, a sign that the company's self-proclaimed retail holiday might become a tradition.

'After yesterday's results, we'll definitely be doing this again,” said Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, in a statement Wednesday.

Orders surpassed last year's Prime Day event by more than 50 percent in the United States and more than 60 percent around the globe, Amazon said in a statement Wednesday. That means that despite some technical hiccups and stronger competition than last year, the company's loot could be even bigger than last year. JPMorgan recently estimated that in 2015, Prime Day gave Amazon's revenues a $400 million boost.

The Seattle tech and retail giant also said it sold more of its own devices than in any other day in history. In the United States, Amazon sold more than 2 1/2 times more Echo voice-activated speakers than in the previous highest selling day, and three times more Amazon devices than in the last Prime Day. The best-selling Amazon device around the world was the Fire TV Stick, the company said.

Shoppers globally bought more than 2 million toys, 1 million pairs of shoes, 90,000 TVs and hundreds of thousands of Kindle e-readers, the company said. Mobile orders surpassed last year's event by a factor of two.

Small businesses using the Amazon platform, an increasingly important constituency for the company's bottom line, saw their orders triple vs. last year's event, Amazon said.