Raspberry Pi sales surge on the back of COVID-19 crisis

Enthusiast mini-PC on a board, Raspberry Pi, is experiencing a surge in orders on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic. As with other parts of the tech sector experiencing a sharp rise in sales, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has experienced its second largest number of sales in a month. For the month of March, sales hit a phenomenal 640,000 units.

Raspberry Pi founder and current CEO Eben Upton says that he believes the sales spike is because people are looking for an inexpensive way to work from home or continue with their studies in response to lockdown orders. Upton revealed that the number of unique IP addresses connecting to the Raspbian OS mirror system crested 90,000 over a several day sequence in March, which is up from the usual peak of around 58,000.

In addition to home use, Raspberry Pi has also found its way into several new ventilator designs as companies scramble to make enough units available for people suffering from COVID-19 related respiratory issues. Upton believes that this is because it is a readily available, compact and inexpensive computer with enough horsepower to be fit for purpose. Raspberry Pi says it is ramping up production 192,000 units per month 250,000 for the coming month to help meet the increased demand.