Raspberry Pi CEO: ‘Million-Unit Months’ Are Ahead
From July 2023 we could see a million Raspberry Pis per month
In the latest Raspberry Pi Community Events newsletter, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton has provided an update on Raspberry Pi stock levels. It seems that things are on the up and up, possibly to a million units per month, thanks to a little help from Sony.
In the newsletter, Upton provides an update on the supply of Raspberry Pi. Q1 2023 was the worst for Raspberry Pi since 2015, with roughly 800,000 units shipped. That may sound like a lot, but typically Raspberry Pi will ship that many in a month. The reason for this number was in part due to pulling production forward into December 2022 with a view to providing more units for makers and resellers during the holiday period.
As of now, 2023 is looking good, thanks to support from long term partner Sony. Sony was able to stockpile the "non-silicon elements of our bill of materials" and this means that Raspberry Pi and Sony were able to produce more finished units. Sales Projections for May 2023 are at 600,000 units with an expected 800,000 units in June. But July 2023 is where things get exciting, with Raspberry Pi expecting to sustain 1 million units per month for as long as necessary to clear the remaining backlog.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have experienced the global supply chain issues, exacerbated by a global pandemic. Raspberry Pi was not immune to this, and for the best part of two years they have been hard to come by. In November 2022, Upton wrote about how 2023 would see improvements to stock, and in recent months that has come true. During an interview with YouTuber Jeff Geerling, Upton spoke candidly about stock levels, OEM prioritization and how his predictions performed. We can expect to see more Raspberry Pi in stock. Older boards, like the Raspberry Pi 3A+ and the Zero range are already quite well-stocked, but others such as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and the Compute Module 4 are still hard to come by. Raspberry Pi 4 stock is getting better, with pockets of availability now stretching into hours and days, rather than minutes.
Upton ends the update on a positive note.
"It's been a painful two years since shortages kicked in in 2021, but we're confident that the shortages are behind us, and that 2023 will be our strongest ever year for sales of Raspberry Pi single-board computers and modules."
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".