Press Releases

RS Components, Raspberry Pi Foundation celebrate shipment of 10 millionth Raspberry Pi

Popular among engineers and enthusiasts alike, the 10 millionth Pi is a significant milestone in the platform's success

Taiwan, 22 September 2016:

RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc (LSE:ECM), the global distributor for engineers, announced in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi Foundation that the cumulative sales total for Raspberry Pi products has now reached 10 million units.

RS has played an important role – from the very beginning in February 2012 – in enabling the Raspberry Pi to reach this impressive sales landmark. In addition to being an authorised distributor, RS is one of the official manufacturers of the Raspberry Pi and, during peak production, produces just short of 1400 boards per hour with manufacturing partner Sony at their factory in the UK.

Lindsley Ruth, Group Chief Executive at Electrocomponents, commented: “We are privileged to be a part of the phenomenal achievement that is Raspberry Pi. It has been a huge hit in many industrial applications as well as in the education sector. RS is a key link in the supply chain of this remarkable success story of 10 million boards sold. This is a very proud moment for all of us.”

Targeting use in industry, in homes and in schools and colleges worldwide, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has introduced a number of new and increasingly powerful models since the board’s launch more than four years ago, all available from RS across EMEA and Asia Pacific, and from Allied Electronics in North America.

Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit

Another significant milestone was the recent worldwide launch of the Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit. Targeting new and beginner-level users, the Starter Kit comprises eight items – Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board, case, micro-SD card pre-installed with New Out Of Box Software (NOOBS), USB keyboard & mouse, international power supply, HDMI 2.0 cable, and the ‘Adventures in Raspberry Pi’ book, which has nine fun projects to inspire users to design and build their own inventions and innovations. The kit provides customers with all the connectors and peripherals they need to be off to a fast start with the Raspberry Pi 3.

July and August saw excellent sales of the Raspberry Pi 3 in China, so the outlook for sales of the Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit is extremely positive. Customers in China are very creative in how they use the Raspberry Pi, putting it to use in coffee machines and sushi belts, for example. That ingenuity should help drive local sales of the Starter Kit.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

The latest Raspberry Pi model is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, which was launched in February of this year. This board has significantly upgraded processing capabilities to deliver 50% more performance than Raspberry Pi 2 and approximately ten times more than the original Raspberry Pi, allowing it to run even higher-end applications, as well as offering integrated Bluetooth and wireless LAN connectivity as standard for Internet of Things (IoT) development projects.

"The Raspberry Pi 3 platform can be used for an enormously wide range of applications," said Rob Maycroft, Global Product Manager at RS Components. "The low cost coupled with the tremendous versatility of the platform have seen worldwide sales balloon beyond anyone's wildest imagining. And with the Starter Kit, users can begin their prototyping and development projects as soon as they have the board in their hands."