Raspberry Pi Holdings plc (RPI · LSE)
The £40 Computer Inside Other People's Machines
Raspberry Pi designs tiny, cheap, low-power computers that hobbyists tinker with and factories build into vending machines, medical devices and industrial kit.
Bull case for Raspberry Pi Holdings plc
Twelve years of hardware, software and community
A dozen years of chips, code and a huge user base would be slow and costly to copy.
Designs its own silicon and software in-house
Owning the chip design and the operating system keeps costs down and supply under its control.
Millions of tinkerers become paying engineers
Engineers who learn on the boards at home specify them later at work, seeding company orders.
Bear case for Raspberry Pi Holdings plc
Cheap boards make hardware margins thin
Selling low-cost computers leaves little room per unit if component prices rise.
Manufacturers can drop the board next redesign
Company customers may switch to a rival module whenever they refresh a product.
Chip supply and a concentrated manufacturing base
Boards depend on outside chip fabrication and a narrow set of factories to build them.