GoKawiilFrequently asked questions about the history of the Raspberry Pi
When was the first Raspberry Pi released? The first Raspberry Pi (Model B) went on sale on 29 February 2012 for 35 US dollars. Demand was so high that the servers of both distributors, Farnell and RS Components, collapsed on launch day. Where does the name “Raspberry Pi” come from? “Raspberry” follows the tradition of British computer companies naming themselves after fruit (Apple, Acorn, Apricot). “Pi” refers to the Python programming language, which was the recommended language for the computer from day one. How many Raspberry Pis have been sold so far? According to the annual report of Raspberry Pi Holdings, around 68 million units had been sold by March 2025. That makes the Raspberry Pi the best-selling British computer of all time — it broke the ZX Spectrum’s record back in 2015. Since when has Raspberry Pi been designing its own chips? Since 2021: the RP2040 microcontroller chip in the Raspberry Pi Pico was the first in-house design. It was followed by the RP1 I/O chip in the Raspberry Pi 5 (2023) and the RP2350 in the Pico 2 (2024), which offers RISC-V cores alongside ARM. Is Raspberry Pi still a charity? Partly: since the IPO on 11 June 2024, Raspberry Pi Holdings plc has been a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange. The charitable Raspberry Pi Foundation remains the majority shareholder, however, and continues to fund computer science education with the proceeds.
Sources and methodology
All event dates on this page come from the original announcements on raspberrypi.com (the publication date of each announcement) and are linked directly at the event. Additional sources: the UK Charity Commission register (founding dates of the Foundation), the investor relations pages of Raspberry Pi Holdings plc (sales figures from the annual reports) and ESA’s astro-pi.org. Events without a day-precise primary source (such as the 2006 prototype phase) are deliberately listed with the year only.
Updates and changes
This page is updated whenever something big happens in the Raspberry Pi world. Last updated: August 2026 (added: 10-inch Touch Display 2, the 2026 RAM price developments). Missing an event that belongs on the timeline? Drop me a line via the contact form.