Interview with Roger Thornton
»We're producing 70,000 Raspberry Pi 5 a week«
The last years, the electronics industry have been characterized by delivery delays and price increases. The situation has eased noticeably since 2023. Raspberry Pi was also affected by production downtimes, but makers and industrial developers can look forward to short delivery times again in 2024.
Mr. Thornton, the last few years have been dominated by uncertainty and delivery delays. Are all the semiconductors you need for your production fully available without restrictions now?
Roger Thornton: Every electronics company has faced unprecedented supply chain issues in the last couple of years due to a wide range of global shocks, and Raspberry Pi was not immune to this. We’re in a much better position for supply and stock in 2024, and you can see this reflected in indicators like rpilocator.com as well as lead times coming down to where we expect to see them.
What about the new Raspberry Pi 5 in particular? How many units do you produce per year, and will it be available from all usual retailers in 2024?
We are working with our UK manufacturing partner, Sony, to scale production to meet the high demand we are seeing for all our products. We are currently producing around 70K Raspberry Pi 5 units per week in the UK, and this will rise to 90K per week soon as new test heads come online.
Is there a difference between availability for private individuals and industrial customers?
Individuals’ product purchases naturally differ from those of industrial customers. Where an individual customer is concerned with the next-day availability of one unit, industrial customers are concerned with pipelining supply over months for thousands of units. To accommodate these differences, we partner with an extensive and diverse network of approved resellers, so both types of customers can buy from a reseller that meets their needs.
What about the costs? For Which models did you have to adjust the prices?
Prices for our products have not changed in the last twelve months. We have seen unscrupulous unauthorised vendors resell Raspberry Pis at inflated costs during the last year, but our pricing has not changed, and as we see products return to an increasingly robust stock situation this behaviour from some sellers should be untenable.
How is the availability of other Pi models, for example the RP2040, the Raspberry Pi Pico, the Raspberry Pi Zero or the Raspberry Pi 4?
We’re pleased that we can see a return to stock over the full range of models this year. In fact, many of the products you cite are already available in bulk quantities for immediate shipping.
