Raspberry Pi production rate rising to a million a month
- Reference: 1685942951
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/06/05/raspberry_pi_shipments_rise/
- Source link:
In a newsletter article spotted by [1]Tom's Hardware , Upton said the fruiterer shipped 800,000 units in Q1 of 2023 – its worst result since 2015 and a number that buyers usually acquire in a single month.
Upton wrote that he is now seeing a "rapid recovery in silicon supply" – a recovery he attributed to "Sony's willingness to stockpile the non-silicon elements" required to build out single board computers (SBCs) which are Raspberry Pi's mainstay.
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The biz shifted around 600,000 units this May, expects to produce 800,000 in June and will hit the million units mark in July. Upton said production levels will remain there "for as long as necessary" to clear remaining back orders and return to easy availability.
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Upton also expressed confidence that Pi shortages are in the past, and 2023 will be the "strongest ever year" for the SBCs and modules.
The CEO has been predicting that supply chains would improve in Q2 since at least [5]December last year .
[6]What supply chain crisis? Supermicro lifts rack-scale system production
[7]Millions of Gigabyte PC motherboards backdoored? What's the actual score?
[8]Sony Semiconductor sinks Simoleans into Raspberry Pi to advance edge AI
[9]WTF is solid state active cooling? We've just seen it working on a mini PC
While Pis are again being produced in high numbers, increased component costs – as expected during a supply chain crisis – have led to price rises for the models including the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4, the Compute Module 4, and the Raspberry Pi Zero.
In a recent [10]interview with YouTuber Jeff Geerling, Upton seemed content with the supply situation. He also revealed that the business decided not to float the price of its products and "let capitalism take care of it" as component prices moved in recent years – despite the amount of money that could have been made.
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"I think that would've been a horrible betrayal of trust," said the CEO, though it would have left Raspberry Pi able to "swim in the profits."
"Oh my god, the amount of money that we could have made and if we'd floated the price of the products."
That's a reference to the COVID-caused crimps on supply chain inputs ranging from chips to ships. Many tech vendors did hike prices as the cost of their inputs grew. The boot's on the other foot now, as supply chains are moving fast once more but demand has dived, leading companies like HP to [12]discount aggressively and PC-makers like Lenovo [13]experience 75 percent profit declines.
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Upton told Geerling that Raspberry Pi users tend to horde their machines, keeping several in the back cabinet for a rainy day.
"People can survive a transient shortage, just as a company might … by having some buffer of supplies and inbound componentry. So a hobbyist can survive for a period of time by using the Raspberry Pis they already have," opined Upton. ®
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[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-ceo-million-unit-months-are-ahead
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZH2yQe2ZntcMMpD@afIbwwAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZH2yQe2ZntcMMpD@afIbwwAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZH2yQe2ZntcMMpD@afIbwwAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-update-its-good-news/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/supermicro_rackscale_output_increase/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/gigabyte_uefi_backdoor/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/14/sony_semiconductor_raspberry_pi_investment/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/01/frore_systems_airjet_cooling/
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_aL9V0JsQQ
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZH2yQe2ZntcMMpD@afIbwwAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/31/aggressive_pc_discounts_might_not/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/24/lenovo_q4_2023_profit_sales_crash/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZH2yQe2ZntcMMpD@afIbwwAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: A Bit Late Now
A lot of other SBCs are cheaper and more powerful but none have the software support and the community which the RPi has
Re: A Bit Late Now
> none have the software support and the community which the RPi has
And luckily for the RPi people none of the other hobby-targetting SBC manufacturers tumbled that the hardware is nothing without usable software.
Many SBCs have offered better features, faster speeds and lower prices than Pi's since well before COVID. However their software often consisted of an out-of-date o/s and precious little ability to access the I/o without complex and badly documented configuration commands.
Though if all that people want is a media player, pi-hole or other purely software solution then the Pi people may well find that those potential customers have already found other boards that satisfy their needs.
Re: A Bit Late Now
Are there tho', cheaper yes, better features in a cherry picked aspect - lots, better and cheaper, which ones are those?
Re: A Bit Late Now
Anecdotally, I see plenty of ads for /better/ Raspberry PI class SBCs - maybe with more memory or zappier processors or whatever - at higher prices. Usually promoted as "Pi killers". I'm sure there's a market for such things. They are always 20-50 more expensive that RPI list prices, and that's fair enough. However, I /never/ see ads for /cheaper/ PI equivalents, by which I mean low cost SBCs capable of running some sort of lightweight *nix distribution, something like the 2012 vintage PIs. These days, of course, microcontrollers based on ARM or RISCV can be found on boards with wifi or bluetooth or USB but there still seems to be a gap. Is there a via market segment for "more than a microcontroller but less that a PI 3 B", and where is it?" (Maybe just not profitable enough)
Re: A Bit Late Now
They've been prioritising commercial customers rather than hobbyists, which seems a betrayal to me.
Re: A Bit Late Now
Did you listen to the interview Eben had with Jeff?
When none of the UK resellers have any stock, and CPC advertising "More stock available week commencing 05/02/24", I'd just say "fuck off" and move onto another device.
Cheer up, [1]you can get RPi 3s now if you order from EU countries and RPi 4s if you order from India .
[1] https://rpilocator.com/
A Bit Late Now
I had an 8Gb Pi4 B on back order since 20th December 2021 with a most recent delivery date of mid January next year, but by now have completely lost all interest in the project I was going to use it for and have cancelled my order. Whether the delay is actually down to availability of the 8Gb model or me just being bumped down the list by the supplier as I was ordering only one I don't know, but I doubt I'll be looking at the Pi again in the future as the are a whole lot of newer alternatives out there now that are both cheaper and easier to get hold of.