Anyone buying a Raspberry Pi this Christmas will be out of luck after the company revealed an influx of devices.
The announcement was made in a blog post titled “Supply Chain Update – Great News!” (opens in a new tab)Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said that 100,000 single-unit sales (one per customer) have been secured, and Raspberry Pi Zero will be purchased in volume in 2023.
Following earlier concerns about supply, Raspberry Pi is also expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by the second half of 2023, and unit sales will play an important role in helping the company return to its “balanced inventory levels,” Upton added. .
Raspberry Pi Supply
“For the first time in several years of semiconductor supply chain hell, we have some good news for you,” Upton wrote.
“In appreciation of our very patient army of enthusiast customers in the run-up to the holidays this year, we’ve been able to set aside over a hundred thousand units, broken down into Zero W, 3A+, and 2GB and 4GB variants of the Raspberry Pi 4, for stand-alone sales.”
However, the news isn’t all positive, as the Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W will both see price increases of $5.
Upton noted that, given the minimalism of the Zero, it has always offered very low margins and is “no longer commercially viable at its original price point” given recent cost increases.
However, he added that once the inventory issues are resolved, “we no longer expect to see the per-unit limit of a feature that has been zero since its launch in 2015 — you can do it all at once.”
“While we’re not completely out of the woods yet, things are definitely improving,” Upton added, reminding customers they should always buy from an approved dealer to ensure they’re getting the right price.
“For a variety of reasons, we have a much better view of the future silicon supply chain in 2022 than we entered it. Therefore, we can confidently say that after a poor first quarter, we expect supply to recover into 2022 previous levels.” Pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2023 and unrestricted in the second half of this year. “
