Apple iPad: The Final Nail In The Netbook Coffin?

Some analysts think so.

It seems that just last year the netbook was poised to overthrow the mobile computing market. Netbooks’ overtaking of notebooks and laptops (and desktops, too) would be either violent or peaceful, depending on how the industry wanted it. But it was going to happen one way or the other. Or was the success of netbooks just a fad?

Regardless, industry analysts say the netbook is dying a very public death and it’s the Apple iPad that’s holding the pillow over its face.

According to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, netbook sales reached their peak just less than a year ago, hitting a staggering 641 percent year-over-year growth rate. But just months later, the fireworks have fizzled. Consumers slammed on the breaks when it came to netbook purchases, which dropped to 68 percent growth year-over-year in January from 179 percent in December 2009. Netbook sales continued to tumble and, by April, they were a mere 5 percent more than April 2009.

“[But sales] fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April - [apparently] collateral damage...from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt said in a recent Fortune report.

Fortune cites a survey conducted in March by Morgan Stanley/Alphawise that found 44 percent of U.S. consumers who were looking to buy an Apple iPad were shelving their plans to buy a netbook or notebook in favor of the new flavor.

And while the Apple iPad’s April release may have made an immediately noticeable dent in netbook sales, NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker stopped short of saying that the iPad has dealt the netbook its ultimate death blow.

“Could there be some cannibalization of netbook sales by the iPad?” Baker asked in a Computer World report. “Sure. But it's too soon to tell. Certainly the growth rate is coming down - but that's logical.”

Baker continued: “In 2009, netbook sales were a growth story against nothing (in the year before). So it’s really a matter of where we are in the development of the product. I’d say it’s very difficult at this stage to attribute declining growth of netbooks to the iPad.”

Regardless of whether Steve Jobs’ and Co.’s hands are stained with the blood of the netbook, one thing is for certain, the Apple iPad has become an unstoppable force in a market that was looking for an alternative. In just over a month, the Apple iPad has moved more than one million units and, according to one Yankee Group analyst, the iPad is on pace to hit 1.5 million sold and make $1 billion by the end of May.

If both the Yankee Group’s and Morgan Stanley’s estimates are correct, that 1.5 million Apple iPads sold means more than 650,000 netbooks left on the shelf all thanks to the iPad.