How Many ST/TTs/TOS Machines Sold?

[gilsaluki]

New to this area of AtariAge. Maybe an old question.  How many STs were sold back in the day?  What country(ies) were the they mostly sold? Numbers as compared to the Atari Eights.

[Goochman]

ST was big in Europe - esp Germany.  So much so that inventory to the US was restricted so they could give Europe as many machines as they could produce.

 

Id imagine from 87-89 the STs sold in good numbers, but I dont have anything specific.

 

ST's were also the choice of many musicians across the globe.

[+DarkLord]

I always seem to hear the number 4-6 million tossed about...

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

As I know STs were sold around 3 millions. Mostly in period 1985-1988 .  Falcon - some 30000 only .

Indeed, most of sales was in Europe, Germany especially (from where many finished in East Eu.) .

Here to add that already in spring 1987 strong competitor arrived on market: Amiga 500. It needed some time to have richer SW choice.

[calimero]

Hi,

I did lot of investigation around numbers, I even made a site for typing and collecting Atari serial numbers just to helps us in search for you question

 

Jeremy Reimer did make an Excel sheet with numbers of many different computers but I did found Atari ST numbers in his sheets quite illogical.

 

User Instrict8 did start on few forum threads with same question and I did do a lot of writings, with others, on topic. I will put a list of links to the discussions on different places:

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/257622-atari-st-computer-sales-and-marketshare-a-comparison/

https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=131

https://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13862

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=84295

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=27819

Edited March 3, 2021 by calimero

[gilsaluki]

I would agree with the figure of around 1-2 million STs sold (at the most), not 4-6 million units.   I believe Atari only sold about 2 million 8-bits and those are everywhere.  If they sold 4-6 millions, those would be everywhere as well.  Europe may have been the market, but that was small in comparison to Apple and Big Blue.  As for musical folks, that was really a small demographic specialty area.  Let's face it, Atari was not a leader in the consumer computer segment.  Innovative as hell, but terrible marketers.  

[+DarkLord]

1-2 million is *low* IMHO.

 

I'd probably have been more accurate to have said 3-4 million or so.

 

Went back and checked multiple threads on this subject, they all seem

to bounce around a bit but settle somewhere around these numbers...

 

[larrylaffer]

When we say ST machines we mean ST(F)(M)(E) only or include also TTs and Falcons?

Edited March 6, 2021 by larrylaffer

[oky2000]

On 3/2/2021 at 8:13 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

As I know STs were sold around 3 millions. Mostly in period 1985-1988 .  Falcon - some 30000 only .

Indeed, most of sales was in Europe, Germany especially (from where many finished in East Eu.) .

Here to add that already in spring 1987 strong competitor arrived on market: Amiga 500. It needed some time to have richer SW choice.

I remember when the Amiga 500 came out Atari was ready with £100 price drop to £299 for the 520STFM so the A500 was ...

 

a) extremely ugly

b) RRP £499+VAT+£20 for RF modulator or £15 SCART RGB cable for TV at launch. (many dealers discounted the VAT off the price to be fair).

 

The DRAM prices went up for Atari twice in the mid-late 80s, so twice the £299 price drop had to be raised back to £399 for a while. I think the second time was when the A500 was down to 399 inc VAT sales tax. One time was due to worldwide demand rapidly exceeding supply output so Amstrad dropped their ST/Amiga 500 rival all in one PC and used their stocks of RAM for the business aimed PC1512 8086 DOS/GEM PC, the other time was due to some sort of factory fire in Asia I think.

 

Exact figures are not easy to find now, the only way to know as much as possible is to keep reading the news section of all magazines probably...like when Commodore announced in 1984 in the UK the C64 and VIC-20 had sold more units combined than the so called 'all conquering until late eighties' ZX Spectrum and ZX81 etc

[ParanoidLittleMan]

In Germany in April 1987 prices were approx same:  Atari 520 ST with double sided external floppy drive - 1190-1199 DEM. Amiga 500 (also double sided flo.) same price. ST with single sided was 990 DEM. So, with Atari could save 200 DEM, and myself actually did it, and bought couple months later 2S drive for about 200 DEM. And some RAM expansions too (business) .

To add that I was in dilemma: Atari ST or Amiga. What decided was low SW choice for Amiga, and even more my bad experiences with Commodore 64 build quality - there was only 'fat' C64 available, and PSU was just bad design, quality of chips manufactured in MOS (Korea) was poor - too many failures. Well, now I can say thanks to J.T. - he gave me in some way more job and incoming ?

[calimero]

13 hours ago, oky2000 said:

The DRAM prices went up for Atari twice in the mid-late 80s, so twice the £299 price drop had to be raised back to £399 for a while. I think the second time was when the A500 was down to 399 inc VAT sales tax. One time was due to worldwide demand rapidly exceeding supply output so Amstrad dropped their ST/Amiga 500 rival all in one PC and used their stocks of RAM for the business aimed PC1512 8086 DOS/GEM PC, the other time was due to some sort of factory fire in Asia I think.

off-topic:

I remember that Atari Corp. was, among other American companies, involved in RAM smuggling in USA.

I can not remember but USA impose some embargo to RAM (or electronic) to some far east country and I do remember that Atari was smuggling RAM to USA, I think there were some legal investigation... 

I could be wrong  but if anyone have source regarding this info, please share here.

[calimero]

9 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

In Germany in April 1987 prices were approx same:  Atari 520 ST with double sided external floppy drive - 1190-1199 DEM. Amiga 500 (also double sided flo.) same price. ST with single sided was 990 DEM. So, with Atari could save 200 DEM, and myself actually did it, and bought couple months later 2S drive for about 200 DEM. And some RAM expansions too (business) .

Take a look at this: https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500

Someone at Yugoslavian wikipedia article about Amiga 500 put price in 1987.

 

Well, this is not so surprising since many people from Yugoslavia went to Germany to buy computers (although Yugoslavia had official Apple "importer" quite fast, right behind/same time like west "world" europe  ). Also, official seller for Atari Corp. computers was "Mladinska Knjiga" in Yugoslavia...

 

Btw please do translate that Yugoslavian wikipedia article about Amiga 500 - it looks like that some Atari fanboy wrote it!

[kimchipenguin]

Quote

I believe Atari only sold about 2 million 8-bits and those are everywhere.  If they sold 4-6 millions, those would be everywhere as well.  Europe may have been the market, but that was small in comparison to Apple and Big Blue.  As for musical folks, that was really a small demographic specialty area.  Let's face it, Atari was not a leader in the consumer computer segment.  Innovative as hell, but terrible marketers.  

So why ask for sales numbers if you believe in your made up ones?

Millions of home computers were sold in Europe, it was by no means a small market. STs and TTs were doing quite well in the business market in Germany - thousands of STs were used as terminals or in self-service machines for printing business cards. But business machines aren't usually kept for nostalgia afterwards. What you see in museums, collections or on eBay are just the survivors. BITD the TT wasn't a rare machine. Now it's rare to see one on eBay.