Amazon: Happy Holidays to Us

Updated from 9:52 a.m. EST

Amazon.com (AMZN Quote) said Friday that this year's holiday season finished as its "best ever," an announcement that marks one of the few bright spots in what appears to have been a sluggish period for many retailers.

More than 6.3 million items were ordered worldwide on the peak day Dec. 15, the online retailer said in a press release. The company didn't offer significant numeric details on the "best ever" claim, but shareholders were pleased enough, and the stock rose 2.1%.

Among the highlights, Amazon said that from Nov. 15 to Dec. 10, it sold one copy of Microsoft (MSFT Quote) Office Home and Student 2007 every 2.5 minutes. Best-selling electronics from Nov. 15 through Dec. 19 included Samsung's 52-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color, the Apple (AAPL Quote) iPod touch 8 GB and the Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch netbook.

The Nintendo Wii dominated the top sellers in video games and hardware.

As for DVDs, Wall-E and The Dark Knight were big sellers. On the book side, consumers were most interested in J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

In music, top sellers included Fearless by Taylor Swift, And Winter Came from Enya and the Twilight soundtrack.