Raspberry Pi Surges To 3rd Best Selling Computer Of All Time Surpassing The Commodore 64

In many regards, the Raspberry Pi family of computers is quite modest, which is of course by design. For a relatively small price, you can pick up a fully-functional RPi single board computer that can be used for many purposes, whether it is for learning, creating homemade bots, or cobbling together your own purpose-built media player or server solution. Given RPi's flexibility, it should come as no surprise that the open source Linux-power min PC has proven to be such a popular computing platform for scores of consumers, businesses and educational institutions.

Just how popular? Well, while RPis themselves might be "modest", their sales figures are anything but. In fact, the total number of RPIs sold now outpaces the legendary Commodore 64. Bear in mind that this isn't just one specific model compared to another: it is taking into account the entire families of each platform.

It must be noted, however, that this is kind of an odd comparison to make. During its heyday, the Commodore 64 cost a heck of a lot more than the $40 (or less) purchase price of today's RPis. In that regard, it makes perfect sense that a capable little all-in-one motherboard would sell far more units than a $600+ PC from 35 years ago. But the fact that RPi sold 12.5 million boards in 5 years is still downright impressive.

So which models sold the most? At the top is the Raspberry Pi 3 model B, accounting for 30% of total sales. B and 2B follow behind, each with a 23% share, with the rest of the models slotting in at 4% or less.

It seems certain that the 12.5 million figure will only continue to surge as time goes on, and for many reasons. The enabling little machine should enjoy much more well-deserved growth.