It seems that the UK had itself a merry Kindle Christmas, with Amazon's massively successful ebook reader being the most gifted tech-based product.

A staggering one in every 40 adults in Britain woke up to find an ebook reader under the tree on Christmas morning, with a whopping 92 per cent of these being of the Kindle variety. That's a staggering 1.22 million new Kindles, and 1.33 million ebook readers in total.

And it's women who were the main recipients, with 61 per cent of Kindles received by them. Silver surfers are also getting in on the Kindle revolution, with over 55s twice as likely as 18-24 year olds to get one.

The data was estimated following a YouGov survey of 2,012 adults and Marek Vaygelt, head of technology and telecoms consulting at the company said: "This is finally the year when the late-medieval technology of the printing press was challenged by a 21st Century, digital alternative. 

"Amazon has done a remarkable job of selling the benefits of ereaders and the upside for the publishing industry is that it appears ereader owners, at least in the early days, buy more ebooks than the printed books they purchased before acquiring an ereader."

Tablets also featured pretty highly on the Christmas pressie front with 640,000 of them gifted. Not surprisingly, the iPad dominated - with 72 per cent of the share. Again, women were the main receivers.

We'd suggest that women are taking the initiative in the world of tech, but a more likely story is that men were practising the well-tuned art of giving something that you'd like to receive yourself.

Check out our Amazon Kindle (2011) review