Raspberry Pi leans into semiconductors as sales climb – especially in US and China
- Reference: 1774964711
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/31/raspberry_pi_fy_2025/
- Source link:
The firm, famous for its eponymous diminutive computers, [1]recorded [PDF] revenues of $323.5 million in FY 2025, an increase of 25 percent on 2024. Gross profit was $77.8 million, up 23 percent, and the group reported a 73 percent increase in earnings per share to 11.22 cents.
Growth is still there, but DRAM inflation ... driven up by overwhelming demand from AI ... and cloudy second-half visibility remain the key things investors will worry about
The group [2]noted strengthening demand throughout the year, notably from the US and China. Significantly, semiconductor device volumes exceeded those of boards and modules, totaling 8.4 million units.
The latter statistic might cause concern among the hobbyist community, who would otherwise be delighted at the company's success. While the $66.3 million gross profit from the company's SBC and compute modules was far in excess of the $0.6 million from "Microcontrollers, publishing and others," the company has an "ambition to build Raspberry Pi into a two‑franchise business, with both electronic products and semiconductors making significant contributions to volumes, revenues, and profitability."
Alex Pugh, an analyst at Freetrade, commented: "What's interesting is the business is starting to look broader and more industrial. Semiconductor shipments overtaking boards and modules for the first time is a meaningful milestone. Raspberry Pis are moving out of garages and workshops into elevators, moving walkways, industrial control and automation, digital signage, smart buildings, and energy management.
[3]
"The firm is graduating from maker culture and hobbyist fan fave to something more mature: a business with growing semiconductor scale, stronger OEM and Authorised Reseller demand, and a wider commercial footprint."
[4]
[5]
The company noted increases in unit sales across almost all product variants. It said that development on the Raspberry Pi 6 was "ongoing" following the release of the Raspberry Pi 500+ all-in-one PC in 2025. It did not indicate when the device might reach customers, saying only there would be "significant improvements in performance, efficiency, and usability, and an emphasis on continuity in the software stack." So a bit faster, and you probably won't have to recompile everything to use it.
[6]The idea of using a Raspberry Pi to run OpenClaw makes no sense
[7]Microsoft engineer speedruns Raspberry Pi magic smoke in five minutes
[8]Let them eat Pi: RAM shortage bumps Raspberry prices as much as $60
[9]Raspberry Pi flashes new branded USB drives that promise speedy performance
There was no mention of the anticipated replacement for the Pi Zero 2, which first debuted in 2021.
Looking ahead, the company said it had sufficient memory inventory to carry it through much of 2026, although uncertainty around pricing has clouded long-term forecasts. CEO and founder Eben Upton said: "While the DRAM environment limits second-half visibility, we have the inventory position, supplier relationships and pricing flexibility to navigate it effectively.
"We remain confident in our ability to execute and view the current market environment primarily as an opportunity rather than a threat."
[10]
Pugh added: "Growth is still there, but DRAM inflation – Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips, driven up by overwhelming demand from AI – and cloudy second-half visibility remain the key things investors will worry about. The firm says it has managed DRAM pressure through supplier diversification, pricing adjustments and substantial inventory buffers.
"More revenue is good. But if profit only tracks in line, the obvious question is how much of that extra growth gets absorbed by memory costs or pricing pressure."
Raspberry Pi's results will please shareholders, and its product pipeline appears solid. However, uncertainty in the long-term DRAM market is likely to concern investors, while enthusiasts and hobbyists – the community on which the company was built – may take note of rising microcontroller shipments and prices, and consider what that could mean for its future. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://investors.raspberrypi.com/reports/11/document
[2] https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/raspberry_pi/news/rns_header_widget/story/xjljmgw
[3] 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=2acvvo1wVXtwoqCClhIOyrwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%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=4&c=44acvvo1wVXtwoqCClhIOyrwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] 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=33acvvo1wVXtwoqCClhIOyrwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/20/raspberry_pi_meme_stock_disorder/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/microsoft_manager_pi_smoke/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/02/raspberry_pi_ram_shortage_price_hike/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/22/raspberry_pi_usb_drive/
[10] 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=44acvvo1wVXtwoqCClhIOyrwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Flaming the fans
The entire PC market was built on what generally gets termed hobbyist use. The reality, I think, was wider than this. I was far from the only one to realise that here was an opportunity to introduce computing into situations where the price of a mini would have been impossible*. In fact another lab was using a PET in the same application area where I was using an S100-Z80 system in the late 70s Education was another area and this was something Pis were aimed at right from the start. "Enthusiast" would be a more general, hence better, word.
Once the possibility of wider sales was visible shareholders were able to finance development and production so that value for money and real prices fell. If that hadn't been the case the power that you can have on your desk on your lap, in your pocket and even on your wrist would have been prohibitively expensive for most of us. That's the real world with all computing, including the Pi.
* As a private individual the price of the micro-kit would have also been impossible for a Hobby.
"hobbyist fan fave"
Surely there must have been alternative analysts to quote, analysts with more respect for the English language.
Not too worried here.
Raspberry has already succeeded in spawning a bunch of clones, many of which stuck to the original principles better than the Pi. I worry a bit they might get shafted by component allocation as AI demand devours memory and chip production, but the hobbyist ethos and component ecosystem is here to stay.
The Pi was already getting a bit pricey for a lot of use cases. They haven't had a game-changing idea in a while.
Just adding more RAM is an evolution, not a revolution.
Re: Not too worried here.
> The Pi was already getting a bit pricey for a lot of use cases
Do you mean that you are finding equivalents, with full support, at lower cost - or are you just looking at the prices of the top-end R'Pi models - and are those the ones that are correctly sized for your use-cases?
> Just adding more RAM is an evolution, not a revolution
Does anybody *want* a revolution? That would tend to risk the whole "it can still do everything it always could, but now also..." aspect.
Re: Not too worried here.
> Do you mean that you are finding equivalents, with full support, at lower cost - or are you just looking at the prices of the top-end R'Pi models - and are those the ones that are correctly sized for your use-cases?
Not sure what "full support" means. If a user wants a cheap SBC for desktop use, Pi is a great product and where they should start looking. Comparatively, there's cheaper competition which is also spec'ed differently.
Non-comparatively: many of us are still hoping that volume and targeted specing brings prices down and allows Linux-based SBCs to take up more utility functions. Lower costs bolster the downstream ecosystem and give us real options against the flood of proprietary, ad-enabled, data-harvesting IoT devices.
> Does anybody *want* a revolution? That would tend to risk the whole "it can still do everything it always could, but now also..." aspect.
Yeah, we do. Raspberry's vision already sparked one major paradigm shift. What they did was really cool and expanded what we can do with computers. They launched countless careers and startups by giving the curious more room to tinker. Why wouldn't we want to see another?
If I knew what the next big thing was then I'd be building it. Until then, I hope someone does.
Re: Not too worried here.
> The Pi was already getting a bit pricey for a lot of use cases
Quite. It's mainly attraction, USP even, was that it cost $35 and gave you a "computer" to experiment with and develop code on.
As it is, for people who only want a media player then a s/h mini PC is cheaper and comes with all the extras (power supply, case) that are needed. For those who want to build simple household devices the ESP32 covers the requirements for $5 instead of $100. As does a pi zero 2 or its many clones.
The Pi was revolutionary 14 years ago and spawned a revolution. But like many revolutions, it has lost impetus and direction.
Enthusiasts and hobbyists
In these parts are buying (and using!) way more RP2xxx microcontrollers (on breakouts and boards from a variety of vendors) than we are R'Pi SBCs. Especially if you discount the SBCs that were bought second-hand.
And we benefit from the support that R'Pi put into the tools for the MCU, just as we do the software that runs on the SBCs.
RPi netbook when?
I mean, just take my money already.
Love my 500+ it's the perfect home compute....low power mobile device would be based
Re: RPi netbook when?
If you want something slow, just buy Intel Atom netbook.
Flaming the fans
> hobbyist origins
They disappeared once there were shareholders to placate.
Even though most of the value of RPi as a product and a business is built on a foundation of "hobbyist" development and advocating. Without that it would be just another Chinese board with precious little software., and fewer features than most.