Apple's iPad is most quickly-adopted non-phone launch ever

Apple’s iPad is rapidly emerging as the most quickly adopted consumer electronics launch in history, with sales rates surpassing the last de rigeur consumer tech purchase, the DVD player.

Sounds incredible? Yes, perhaps so, but these aren’t my words but the findings of new data from Bernstein Research, who point out that sales are blowing past Q1’s one million and already massively eclipsing the 350,000 DVD players sold in year one, the previous “most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.”

All this data’s coming out of CNBC, who report analyst Colin McGranahan, who points out (in case you haven’t got it yet) “By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion.”

iPad seems set to become the fourth biggest consumer electronics category with $9 billion in sales next year — up there with notebooks, TVs and smartphones.

This is a nexus point, this is a step to an iPad planet. Netbooks? Netbooks are toast, some say. And then quickly follow with a retraction of what we know is happening.

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Hubert recently said, “The netbook market is getting absolutely crushed by the introduction of the iPad.”

Oh and there’s some competition coming, but they face a big, big challenge: “We believe Apple’s lead in the tablet market will prove difficult to close by the onslaught of competing products coming over the next several quarters,” said Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore today.

“Ultimately, we expect the slew of upcoming competition to fall flat from a user experience standpoint while struggl[ing] to materially undercut the iPad on price.”

Is this an Apple planet?