The top nine best-selling smartphones are all Android devices at the online retailing giant.
Amazon is a pretty good bellwether of consumer technology trends in the US because Amazon carries just about every electronic product available to American shoppers. Their top sellers list is a good indication of what is selling well and what isn’t.
We’ve used Amazon’s lists in the past to denote the top selling laptops especially during Christmas shopping periods.
But Amazon (AMZN) also carries mobile phones from all of the big four US carriers. Just about every make and model, with the notable exception of Apple’s (AMZN) iPhone (a strange omission because Amazon carries both AT&T (T) smartphones and Apple iPods) can be purchased from Amazon.
It is therefore surprising to see that Android dominates the top ten smartphone lists. I’ve been watching the hourly top sellers this weekend and nowhere has Android not owned 9 of the top 10 in the top selling smartphone lists. To make matters more lopsided, Sprint’s best-selling EVO Android product is also not included because it is out of stock.
That’s a pretty incredible indication of consumer demand for the Android platform.
The two non-Android phones are the Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Mobile HTC HD2 and the (RIMM) Blackberry Bold 9700 which have barely broken in at various times this weekend.
Amazon does offer significant discounts and many high end Android phones can now be had for free including the Droid, Aria, Hero, Intercept and Moment. Amazon also offers significant discounts on flagship devices like the AT&T Captivate ($50), T-Mobile Vibrant ($100), Verizon Droid X ($179), Incredible ($149) and Sprint (S) EVO.
But the discounts aren’t specific to Android as Blackberries, Nokias, Palms and Windows Mobile devices can all be found at ‘lower than carrier’ prices. Amazon also throws in $5 music gift card in on smartphone purchases and offers Verizon(VZ) customers $30 off their first phone bill.
It should be noted that most corporate purchases are made directly from the carriers so that segment of the market is under-represented by Amazon’s lists. BlackBerries, as an example, are most often purchased by corporate customers.
Below are top lists from Saturday and Sunday.
