The MagPi has just published an article that will appear in the next issue, due out this Thursday. Gareth Halfacree has interviewed Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading, and has got some much sought-after answers about the much-debated question of Raspberry Pi Zero scarcity.

Eben explains that, because the Zero is produced by Raspberry Pi rather than by distributors RS and Farnell, they haven’t been able to easily ramp-up production. Raspberry Pi is, after all, a small player in production compared to these distribution giants and so progress has been a little slow. Eben has also said that in “the past couple of days” he placed an order for 150,000 Zeros with the aim of evening out production at 50k per month. This should hopefully deter those unscrupulous resellers who were buying Zeros one at a time and selling them on for exorbitant amounts.

I’ve also been keeping an eye on the comments section of the Foundation’s Pi 3 post and was excited to hear Liz Upton’s answer to a question someone asked…

Question: How long will the Zero continue to be made available?
Answer (from Liz): Forever – we’re churning them out as fast as we can. We’re really sorry we weren’t able to explain why there was a bit of a slow-down; it was because we were using the whole production line for Pi 3 pre-launch!

In my opinion, these pieces of news together should come as comfort to those who are trying to buy the Zero and have, so far, been frustrated. They also explain the lack of Zeros – lack of capacity and a focus on Pi 3.

You can get the full story by reading the full MagPi article here.