Amid Raspberry Pi Shortages Major Manufacturer’s License Agreement Expires
The RS Group Will not manufacture any more Raspberry Pi'
Raspberry Pi’s have been in short supply since last year. A few months back, Raspberry Pi CEO, Eben Upton even addressed the shortage issue on a blog post, blaming it on both increased demand and supply shortages. Cut to now, the Raspberry Pi availability has hardly normalised, and on top, one of the biggest distributors of Raspberry Pi’s, RS Components, has pulled out from any further manufacturing and sale.
To be clear, RS Components pulled out at the end of June itself, this year. But it was only recently announced. Apparently, the company was meanwhile negotiating for supplies and also considering alternatives, but most likely it didn’t go through.
With the RS group out of the picture, the Raspberry group still has two other manufacturers and distributors, namely Element14 and the UK Raspberry Pi Foundation. No reason was explicitly given behind the departure of the RS Group, except that the company was in an license agreement with the Raspberry group for 10 years, which started from 2012, and consequently ended in June this year.
The RS group was also a major supplier to the Japanese market, but according to this report, the recent incident is unlikely to affect supply as the principal components are made by Sony. As for people who ordered a Pi from the RS Group, they are most likely to get a refund as the company is cancelling present orders.
