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Where Are the Raspberry Pi Zeros? (i-programmer.info)

Posted by timothy on from the hiding-with-the-other-zeros dept.

mikejuk writes: The Pi Zero was supposed to be available from November 26, 2015. It is now the start of February and all of the stockists, including the Pi Swag Shop, are still showing out of stock. That's two whole months, and counting, of restricted supply which is more than an initial hiccup. Of course you would expect enough to be made available initially to meet the expected demand. The Pi sells something in the region of 200,000 per month so what do you think the initial run of the Pi Zero actually was? The answer is 20,000 units. Of which 10,000 were stuck to the cover of MagPi and "given away" leaving just 10,000 in the usual distribution channels. And yet Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, commented: "You'd think we'd be used to it by now, but we're always amazed by the level of interest in new Raspberry Pi products," Well yes, you really would think that they might be used to it by now and perhaps even prepared for it. At the time of writing the Pi Zero is still out of stock and when it is briefly in stock customers are limited to one unit.
A victim of its own success, yes, but the real victims are the Raspberry Pi's competitors.

3 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. I can understand small first batches by pijokela · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For me, the Pi Zero is pretty much useless, because it has no networking. No wireless, no wired. Nothing.

    So, if someone says they were not sure if people would buy them, I believe that. Looks like there are a lot of people that have completely different uses for their Pies than mine. Go figure.

  2. Nice non-sequiteur at the end by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A victim of its own success, yes, but the real victims are the Raspberry Pi's competitors.

    One might argue that if RPi are unable to deliver what's actually wanted, people will go to their competitors instead.

    So what the hell does this last sentence mean? RPi's competitors are "victims" because RPi has done well? Sorry, that's not how competition works. This isn't even a zero-sum game. RPi has created markets that its competitors failed to create, but are now selling into anyway. RPi's competitors have by-and-large received a massive boost from the existence of RPi. 12-year-olds are now playing with SBCs who would never have even heard of them if not for RPi, and they're not only playing with RPi SBCs.

    1. Re:Nice non-sequiteur at the end by queazocotal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The victims are the competitors that get damaged by the perception that $5 is a price that people should be paying. This is extremely hard for nearly all vendors to manage.
      This means less diversity in the market, especially if people buy a couple of Pis now, in the anticipation of a Zero being available real soon now.