Despite surging in popularity throughout 2011 – a year that included Amazon announcing we would be seeing an array of new models, including a quite impressive tablet, the Kindle Fire – Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has topped an online discount website’s survey revealing last Christmas’ most ‘unused’ gifts. This comes after it was announced in late-2011 that Kindle sales were expected to be around the 5 million mark for the year.

The survey, conducted by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, found that of the 1500 people questioned about Christmas 2011 gifts received, around half reported they had at least one present that had remained unused a month on. Of those, a sizeable 22-percent admitted that it was Amazon’s Kindle which bore the brunt of their neglect for reasons we can’t really fathom, beyond the 50% who had not yet downloaded an e-book for consumption. 

Amazingly, 9% of those surveyed who had received the iPad 2 had yet to take the device from its casing, yet to reveal the glistening screen through the cellophane protector. Excuses ranged from they ‘hadn’t got round to it’ to its lack of battery charge out of the box. Seriously.

We take this time to formally apologise to anyone who bought a Kindle for a loved one – or indeed themselves - based off of our Christmas 2011 Gift Guide, with the exception to people who did not buy the Keyboarded version, opting for the subpar Kindle which was marketed at Christmas.