TWO MILLION!
It took us almost exactly a year to sell the first million Raspberry Pis. Going on that basis, we calculated that we might, if we were lucky, reach the second million around January 2014, or slightly afterwards – we were confident we’d get there by the end of February 2014. So it was a bit of a shock at the end of last week when we got the latest sales figures and discovered that the 2,000,000th Raspberry Pi was sold in the last week of October. We don’t know who owns it – if you bought one between October 24 and October 31st, it might be yours. (It could even be the one we gave to Prince Andrew when he visited on Halloween.)
Back in February 2012, we produced the first 2000 Raspberry Pis in China (UK manufacturing came later), and they were delivered to Jack’s garage in March, from where Eben and I split them into two lots of 1000, stuck them in the boot of our car, and drove them to Farnell and RS Components’ headquarters.

The first 2000 Raspberry Pis
The Pis were in boxes of 50, stacked together to make a pallet of 2000.
We took the web’s first Raspberry Pi unboxing picture.
And on getting the news about the 2,000,000th Pi at the end of last week, it struck us that every single Raspberry Pi in that pallet represents 1000 of the Raspberry Pis that are spread around the world today.
We never thought we’d be where we are today when we started this journey: it’s down to you, our amazing community, and we’re very, very lucky to have you. Thanks!
108 comments
Dave Akerman
Many congratulations for reaching this stunning figure!
meltwater
Well done and massive thanks for letting us be part of something so great.
10 million here we come!
SST
It looks as if the Pi production will go on till eternity. It’s such an amazing device.
SST
Especially for people who tinker around with the GPIO’s.
Alex Eames (RasPi.TV)
Congratulations. 2 MegaPi :)
Stunning achievement. But on top of that, you’ve kick-started (pardon the pun) whole new areas of economic activity as well: case manufacture, plethora of add-ons etc. and even youngsters like Ryan are getting into hardware development. It’s brilliant to see it all unfolding in front of our eyes. None of this would have happened without you guys. So thank YOU! :)
Dutch_Master
Hear hear!
Lemi
I agree, this has rekindled the art of hacking ( In the original sence.)
bertwert
Awesome!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Absoloutley incredible! Congratulations on being such a major industry leader on this front ;-)!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
TheHetman
Congratulatons! How many BBC Micros were sold again?
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Only 1.5 million!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Over 5 million ZX Spectrums (not including clones) were sold…
^ Got a little way to go in order to beat that target!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
clive
http://youtu.be/Ts96J7HhO28
Watching that always brings a little tear to my eye :)
Miguel
Still have my Speccy and software handy, every now and then they come out for some Elite, Pssst, Jet Pac….. No reason for tears! :)
I do hope the Pi beats 5 million this next year.
clive
Tears of joy! Still got my 48k… Maybe b3ta will make a song about us some day ;)
Bjørn Remseth
But that is exactly the right comparison. The beeb and the spectrum were wonderful machines in every meaning of the phrase.
This is already awsome, but even so we have not seen the best yet. (there is also a bit if wonderful recursivity in the acorn/beeb arm/pi relationships ;)
Darren Townsend
…although, you’ll know when you’re on the way down – when Emperor Lord Sir Sugar tries to buy you out!!
AndrewS
ARMstrad? ;)
Andrew/
I still maintain that the Beeb is the best computer not on the market. I hope the Pi never takes this crown!
Darren Townsend
On the contrary…surely the fact that sales are stronger than ever, shows that the product is exactly what the customer wants. Congratulations guys..Vive la revolution!!
fanoush
No, not exactly. I bought two Pis but still waiting for 512MB model A :-)
AndrewS
Buy a Model B, and desolder the LAN9512 chip, the Ethernet connector and replace the twin-USB with a single-USB socket :-D
RobV
.. and one where the I/O face upward
Matt
Wow only 1.5M BBC’s I would have said that there would have been way more. Just shows how great the 2M figure is. Well done to you all.
Mike Redrobe
BBC Micros were mainly in schools, as I remember at the time.
Of all my friends hardly anyone had BBC Micros (quite expensive), we all had ZX Spectrums and C64’s
ZX Spectrums sold 5 million+
C64 17 million+
Y.
Linux on every desktop. :D
Andy
…. or RISC OS … or …
Miguel
Pi OS? There’s a thought!
ukscone
Congratulations. You must be over the moon about this
Hove
On the contrary, the success of the BBC Micro in encouraging kids to program was that there we’re only 2 models – what 1 kid did, every other could share. More models -> more disparity -> less sharing. The Raspberry Pi models A & B are perfect for their target audience – kids in schools
James Gascoyne
My pi is in there somewhere :D
Davespice
On course to beat the C64!
clive
Our objective is to encourage and support people, particularly young people, to get into computing and programming. ‘More of the same’ serves this purpose wonderfully :)
Andy
The BBC micro was an expensive device, so not many people bought more than one.
The Pi is different in that respect – I’ve bought five, others even more.
So it would be interesting to find out how many users there are. Though I’m sure we won’t find out
Oh, and congratulations. Here’s to the next 2M.
Simon
I am the proud owners of one of those first 2000 and what made it even more special because I took the day off on launch day and battled the website to get my order in.
I then came home one evening months later to see a picture of Liz and Eben delivering the first batch to Farnell on the website and as I was reading it an email came through saying “Your order has been dispatched” the wait nearly killed me but it was worth it.
I now have 4 doing a multitude of tasks and have even managed to introduce them at work as environment monitors for our server room and workshop.
Thanks for the Hours/Months of fun they have given me.
Brendan Tierney
Congrats to the folk at Raspberry Pi for 2Mth sale. It is such a good thing Raspberry Pi, and I love the two I have on my desk!
Oskar Blom
Congratulations! Best piece of hardware I’ve bought in a long long time.
asez73
Absolutely fabulous!
Unattended, unexpected and really incredible.
Congratulations again for such a success…
Hope, you’ll get much farther than that!
Miguel
I suggest that when you get to 5 million you make a special edition, golden, Ras Pi :) By ten million it can be a Platinum one :) It may even happen in 2014!
kneekoo
Rather than a vanity show I’d rather wish for PiOS v1.0 – a complete desktop operating system with graphics acceleration and maybe Flash-Friendly File System (F2FS).
Other ideas, people? :D What would you want from Raspbian or PiOS?
Miguel
More speed and more simplicity – less choices, a consistent look and feel for the ‘standard’ distro?
chris
We love them. Thanks for everything.
Bantammenace
The Trouble with Tribbles/RPis is that they are cute to begin with but if you are not careful they just end up getting everywhere and will take over your life. Just how prescient was Star Trek back in 27 December 1967 ? If it looks like RPis are about to take over the world then perhaps the foundation should consider re-introducing a One Pi policy. as it was in the beginning…
W. H. Heydt
My wife had (she gave to our daughter) one of the tribbles actually used in that episode….
Hobbsy
Congratulations guys
Here are some photos I took at the Raspberry Jam Q&A session in Manchester yesterday:
http://hobbsy.com/2013/11/manchester-raspberry-jam-sat-16th-nov-2013/
ric96
Eben looks good with Moustache!!!
W. H. Heydt
The Register has picked up this news, and they drew an interesting (if unsurprising) conclusion about the state of the RPF’s finances.
RobV
Their ( the Register’s ) conclusion was about sales figures. RPF’s attention were arrested by manufacturing figures.
Dermot
The same Register journo’s recent headlines include “We’ve found it – the ULTIMATE man-cave accessory” (a toolchest with built in fridge and TV) and “Oh Mr Darcy! You’re PRESSING MY BUTTONS”. Woodward and Bernstein can probably sleep easy.
Rick
Congrats :)
Here’s to the next goal…5 million by Xmas 2014? :P
andrewo
I did in fact buy one in that time frame.
Tom
Now that there are 2 million, it would be a good time (imho) to start a reference table that shows definitively how to tell each version from the others. Some projects seem to have hardware/software version dependencies. For example, the BrickPi has mounting holes that match up with later versions of the Raspberry Pi.
AndrewS
http://elinux.org/RPi_HardwareHistory ?
Andrew
IIRC, the one millionth Spectrum made at the Timex Factory in Dundee was painted gold.
Maybe the 3,141,592th Raspberry Pi should recieve the same treatment.
Andrew
Got it wrong, the one millionth Spectrum was white – as this video of Sir Clive Sinclair shows…
http://www.frequency.com/video/sir-clive-sincl/42555521
Miguel
Same idea. Comemorative limited editions would be nice for hard core fans of the Pi. :)
Jim Manley
When I was a kid, there was a public service announcement (PSA) “commercial” that was pointing out how small a single drop of water is, but if you put enough of them together, you can eventually fill an ocean. Congratulations on turning a puddle into a pond, a pond into a lake, a lake into a bay, a bay into a sea, and are well on the way to creating an entire ocean!
Like an ocean or a racing sailboat, the one-design of the Pi models means that once you’ve learned to navigate and operate with one, you can do it with any of them, anywhere in the world (after adjusting the i18n -internationali(s/z)ation – settings). I can’t think of many other platforms on which that’s as feasible.
As stated in NATO Allied Tactical Publication (ATP) 1 under Alfa Delta Two Eight (AD28), “Splice the Mainbrace!”, aka the order to break out the grog (usually rum) rations for the ship’s crew. You’ve certainly earned it! :D
Will Billingsley
Well done Eben and Liz! It’s been great seeing what you’ve been up to take off since we last saw you.
Your old pals (who still owe you a dinner)
Will and Fiona
liz
Hello you two! Do drop us a mail; it’d be lovely to hear what you’re up to at the moment!
Hidden
Made in China :)
liz
The first Pis were, but they’ve been made in the UK for a long time now. There is still a Chinese manufacturer making red Raspberry Pis, but those are only for the Chinese market.
colin allison
I just knew you could do it guys! Does the 2 million include the red ones for the Chinese market, or are they additional to that figure?
colin allison
Oh forgot – CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
liz
Those are additional – we only get figures for those annually.
colin allison
Just goes to confirm then – what a fantastic achievement – the naysayers will be eating craw!
Colin
Dan
I bought my PI on Oct 27th glad to be a part of it!
Khaled.M
Congratulations on reaching this great number :)
31/10/2013 I bought 3 Raspberry Pi’s, I have triple the chance of being the owner of the number 2,000,000 Raspberry Pi :D
Jimmy
I know this is going to really unlikely but will there ever be a statistical map showing the spread of the Raspberry Pis?
Stewart Watkiss
There is Rastrack:
http://rastrack.co.uk/
It only has a small number of the total number of Raspberry Pis as you need to register your Pi for it to be included (which is now available through raspi-config), but it gives a rough idea of the distribution of Pis around the world.
It looks like a game of Risk – looks like they must have picked the “World Domination” card :-)
kneekoo
:) Here you go: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1298
James Cane
Your two millionth sale couldn’t be the one you gave to Prince Andrew.
You know, for free?
liz
We still have to pay for them, you know. ;)
don isenstadt
congratulations! I still have my original box from RS UK. Now local retailers carry the PI locally. There are many other boards out there but none of them have the community and support that the raspberry pi has! Keep up the great work.. thanks again
-don
kneekoo
Congrats and much love to you! :)
My Pi is already 1 year old so I’m lucky to be in the first million and also a happy owner of the first batches of model B with 512 MB of RAM. Woohoo! :D
edwinj85
Looks like British made computers are back on the map!
I can’t wait for Wayland to be ready. Pi desktops (hell, even mini gaming machines, open arena is a pretty decent and Quake 3 is awesome) will be amazing.
liz
Thanks Edwin! Progress so far is looking good; we don’t have a firm date for Wayland on the desktop yet, but progress is looking great and we think you’ll really enjoy it.
vasi
You’ve got a lot of experience now, could you design a new product intended for the hobby market, more powerful/expensive and use the profits for promoting education ?
I’d rather buy a $50-$80 product from you than any other maker on the market.
Storris
I would love a device that has the same sort of internals as a contemporary high-end mobile.
Dual or Quad core cpu/gpu and 1-2GB or RAM.
domo
grats
Ricky
Awesome creation pls just don´t send the production to China, no more china crap.
andy
My first Pi was a chinese one and worked perfectly well until it got struck by lightning.
elmsley
This is a great achievement. Congratulations!
Is there some statistics you can provide which show what these 2 million are used for? I’m not sure I’ve registered my intent for mine, but I’d be sad to see a majority of these collecting dust in some school storage facility.
Perhaps it would be cool if the OS packages could “call home” with their serial numbers and info to help with that.
Dave Akerman
Well, I know that approximately 0.0003% have been to near space :-)
ric96
WOW!!!
how many records did this figure break???
Ben Shamsian
Awesome, congratulations
bertwert
Lots of comments!
J Ashfield
Congratulations on 2 million Raspberry Pies ;)
I’ve got 2 of em :)
bertwert
Same, we hae an millionth of all the R-Pis
bertwert
**have**
Robert M
“That’s no moon!”
Congrats on this pleasantly over-sized achievement! Especially since this seems to be just the beginning.
winkleink
Congratulations on shipping 2m.
But more importantly Congratulations on achieving the goal you set out to achieve of getting a device in to the hands of 10,000 kids that might inspire them to be interested in computing.
I think when the 1.75m was announced Eben mentioned that ~300,000 are in the hands of kids.
Even if you forget the other 1,700,000 sold gorwn up kids this is already 3,000% over the goal that started it all.
I’d be shocked if in amongst those 300,000 there weren’t at least 10,000 kids who have found a new love for computing and this is even before the serious formal education work gets into gear..
liz
We think we can actually start to revise the 20%-going-to-kids figure upwards as of the start of this school term; we have seen a very large number of schools buying classroom sets (of varying sizes – one kid I have spoken to goes to a school where there are five for the class, another where there’s one for every child). We need to do some maths in a few months when we have a clearer idea of how many schools are tooling up!
rr
After the maths a rastrack of schools and number of Pi’s per class/hours of usage per week, may allow parents and their children to make informed choices together/avoid a Pi desert.
Dan Gleason (USA)
I feel so proud of what you and your team have done.
I have followed the pi since the beginning of 2012 and like many others had waited as the back-order list was fulfilled over a 6 week period, and since then had ordered three more as I am always finding a new project that I want to create and the pi is just so versatile, powerful, and fun to work with that I run out of time way before my imagination wears out.
I have not commented on here before, but I really felt such genuine admiration for what you have accomplished that I was compelled to voice it. By your example, you have inspired me to continue tinkering, experimenting, and chasing my dreams, and that is quite an impressive thing to do for someone, so from the bottom (and top) of my heart, thank-you for your heard work, tenacity, genius, and sleepless nights.
From halfway around the world, in sunny Southern California, Dan Gleason.
stick
Sony sold a million PS4’s in the first 24 hours of it’s launch. I love the fact that they also make the raspberry pi. Which production line will last the longest?
AndrewS
Fantastic news :-)
To celebrate the sale of the 2-millionth Raspberry Pi, here’s the 2-millionth digit of pi: 0
Ken MacIver
So 2* (the weight of a PI in Grams) is the total weight in tons of PI’s made..
A silly sum maybe, but what a visualisation.
Congrats to all
Andy
So 45 tonnes, or just over one large truck
meltwater
Is there any data regarding units sold over time, would be interesting to plot the rise of pi.
I also want to work out if I should ensure my Pi ownership should follow the curve.
Pete
I love that they are British …I have two RPis ….one Pi Hub … Makes me want to buy more from local industry because the quality is spot on. KEEP GOING!!
Lars Stenfeldt Hansen
Well done!
danialFACT
hehehe – I received my two new pi’s on 28/10 – that means I either have #’s 1 999 999 & 2 000 000
or
#’s 2 000 000 and 2 000 001?
GREAT JOB GUYS!!!
tai viinikka
Congratulations, and well done. I agree with the racing sailboat analogy — one design makes for great racing and lots of expertise! Stick with it, RPF!
Roger Hyam
Congratulations and here’s to the next million!
Harley
XBMC media center on Raspberry Pi for everyone!
bayu
Congratulations for the amazing job you do.
OldNat
Amazing. For an amazing technology. I just got the first info about this all a month ago. And am a full heavy blood-fan of it since! I wish yo(and therewith me :-) all the best with it. And if you can make it more tiny, it would spread even more. Now it can be built into G Gauge model trains only – then also H0 shall be possible. Just to show an example of using an RPI among the zillion possibilities…
Chris Ferrell
Was bought my Pi by a friend. Didn’t really take much interest until then. Think I need atleast another 3 for various ideas I have. I’m sure you’ll be up to 5 million by the end of next year at this rate!
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