The Raspberry Pi Foundation today announced that it has achieved a significant milestone in terms of sales of its tiny and affordable computational boards over the last five years. And that amounts to more than 12.5 million, which now puts them ahead of the widely popular Commodore 64.
According to its official PiMag magazine, the sales figure catapults Raspberry Pi to the third position in terms of popularity of “general purpose computing platform.” It now stands behind Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows PCs, whose sales figures might be quite difficult for these tiny boards to surpass. These results have been reported on the basis of some estimates, but it adds the boards’ name in the annals of history. Talking about this feat, Eden Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi said,
The Commodore 64 had, until recently, the distinction of being the third most popular general purpose computing platform. We are now the third most popular general purpose computing platform after the Mac and PC.
Further, the organization has also provided a breakdown for the sale of all of its Raspberry Pi Linux boards over the years. The same is attached underneath and shows us that their latest full-sized model — Pi 3B has exceeded all of its Pi predecessors to become the best-seller till date. It currently holds a 30 percent market share, followed by Pi 2B with 23 percent. Also, you can notice that the very first Raspberry Pi board — Pi A now holds only a 2 percent market share. So, save that rare piece of computing genius.
But, as one can see, a handful of individuals have expressed their apprehensions with the numbers presented by Raspberry Pi in the comments section of the magazine. They believe that it is “slightly disingenuous ” to compare the entire Pi board lineup with a sole model of the Commodore lineup. But, it’s just an observation, which doesn’t overshadow the fact how these tiny Pi computers have been leading the initiative on the micro-controller and robotics front.
Raspberry Pi — in case, somehow, you are unaware of it — is a UK-based charity that seeks to promote the study of computer-based devices through the process of implementation and experimentation.
