The Raspberry Pi Foundation thinks that one million Raspberry Pi units have been sold since the $25 wallet-sized Linux computer launched in February 2012, based on figures released by one of its distributors Premier Farnell.

Premier Farnell is one of two companies which manufactures the circuit board, and it reports that its put out 500,000 units. The other company is RS Components.

"We don't have completely up-to-date figures from RS Components yet, but Farnell's news suggests that we're well on the way to having sold our millionth Raspberry Pi," said the foundation's marketing manager Liz Upton in a blog post. "I've not got much more to say - but I will note that we'll be opening a bottle of something fizzy tonight!"

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a non-profit organiazation in the UK which creates the basic computer that can be connected to a TV or a monitor via HDMI. The Raspberry Pi can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, including office work, Internet browsing and high-definition video playback.

The device was designed to get children interested into programming and engineering, and inspire a new generation of innovators.

"It seems every time we talk about the Raspberry Pi we say it has been a true phenomenon, but it genuinely has," said a statement from Mike Buffham, Global Head of EDE at element14 - the company which distributes the computer for Premier Farnell. "Back in February last year we could never have thought it would be this successful. Now less than a year on and we have manufactured over 500,000 at element14 alone, and we are delighted to have signed a new global contract with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to continue to play a pivotal role in putting computer programming back at the heart of engineers, both young and old."

Since its release, Raspberry Pi has been enhanced with a free upgrade for new buyers; now shippin with 512MB of memory as standard and it also got its own app store, the Pi Store, during December to help new owners get started with software and development.