Nobody doubts that the C64 was the greatest selling single computer model of all time, it even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but nobody quite knows how many it really was: Most sources say 17 million, others say 22 or even 30 million. With a high degree of confidence, I can now say that Commodore only sold 12.5 million units – how I would know that, you ask, and how do I dare to contradict well-known facts? By analyzing serial numbers!
But let us first examine the existing claims of 17, 22 and 30 million.
Jack Tramiel’s numbers
The numbers 22 and 30 million actually come from Commodore founder Jack Tramiel himself. At the “Impact of the Commodore 64: A 25th Anniversary Celebration” in December 2007 at the Computer History Museum, Tramiel claimed that Commodore sold nearly half a million C64s a month until he left the company in 1984, and he extrapolated this to “between 22 and 30 million units” during the lifetime of the C64. Tramiel’s assistant Michael Tomczyk, who left the company around the same time, uses the same 22 million figure in his 1984 book “Home Computer Wars – An Insider’s Account of Commodore and Jack Tramiel”.
Commodore’s Numbers
But these numbers contradict Commodore’s official sales numbers as researched by Marc Walters: The 1993 Annual Report supposedly states that 17 million units had been sold (production was stopped in April 1994, so this should be very close to the final number). Commodore employee Dr. Peter Kittel confirms the 17 million.
Walters quotes Commodore’s 1993 financial details for the sales numbers between 1990 and 1993:
The following figures are from Commodore annual reports: Fiscal 1990: 700K - 800K (decline begins), fiscal 1991: 800K (non official 1M) fiscal 1992: 650K fiscal 1993: 150K - 200K 1993 Annual Report: 17M total C64, 4.5M C128
Marc Walters’ estimates
Walters also gives his own estimates for 1982 through 1989:
1982: 150K - 300K 1983: 2M 1984: 2M-3M 1985: 2M -3M 1986: 2M -3M 1987: 1M - 2M 1988: 1M - 1.5M 1989: 1M - 1.5M
This data was later picked up by Jeremy Reimer for his Ars Technica article “Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures“.
With these numbers, Commodore would have sold between 13.5 and 19 million units. The following graph shows this, with the 17 million figure added as a scaled version of the ranges given:
Putting all reliable data together
This data is quite consistent, but generic sources contradict these steep numbers in the first years:
- At CES 1984: 1 million (floodgab retrobits)
- end of 1984: 3 million (c64-wiki.com)
- end of 1984: 3.5 million (pctimeline.info)
- end of 1986: 6 million (c64-wiki.com)
- end of 1987: 7 million (pctimeline.info)
- end of 1990: 11 million (Commodore Home Computer Museum (NZ))
This data, with Commodore’s own 1990-1993 data added and some of the missing numbers extrapolated, shows a rather flat and consistent sales curve with a single spike in 1984, totalling about 12.5 million units:
In 1984, about 2 to 2.5 million units were sold, which is about 200,000 units per month. There is no way Tramiel’s statement holds true, given the many sources of the early numbers and their consistency. This also falsifies claims of Tramiel’s 22 million and 30 million sold units, which could be approximated by extrapolating the 2.5 million units across a decade – but the existing data shows that the C64 clearly didn’t perform equally well afterwards.
Examining serial numbers
There are two projects that collect C64 serial numbers:
- The C64 Serial Registry by the C64 Preservation Project
- The C64 Inventory
While the former collects lots of details including case badges and board types, the latter contains information like the video standard as well as photos of all serial number stickers. For the following statistics, we only need the C64 Serial Registry.
Commodore 64 computers were produced in at least 11 different factories worldwide with different and not immediately obvious conventions for serial numbers. But all PCBs, of which there were 16 versions, were manufactured in Hong Kong, and most versions were numbered sequentially, starting at 0 for each new version. The serial number could be found on a sticker on the shield of the cartridge port.
The fact that serial numbers are indeed per board version and are reset to zero for every new board can be seen in the following graph, which was created by sorting the serial numbers by board first and then by number:
If the assumption is correct, serial numbers have to increase linearly until they approach the highest serial number of the board version. All boards should have about the same slope. This is true for all board versions except “250425/A” and “250425/B”, as well as the last two, “250469/A” and “250469/A”.
This can be explained by the bias towards machines from North America in the C64 Serial Registry: About one third of the entries in the database are from the US and Canadian market, but a much smaller percentage of units has actually been sold there – the C64 was very strong in Europe. The first, second and fourth of these board types with a much higher slope were all sold exclusively, and the third one predominantly to PAL markets, i.e. outside North America.
(If the slope there is roughly twice as steep, we can estimate NTSC units are overrepresented in the database by a factor of two, meaning that about 1/6 of all C64 were sold in North America.)
These are the 16 different versions and revisions, the year they first appeared in, the number of boards of this kind in the C64 Serial Registry (that have the board serial number field filled), and the maximum serial number observed:
| year | board | num_seem | max_seen |
| 1982 | 326298 | 4 | |
| 1982 | 326298/A | 21 | 325,512 |
| 1982 | 326298/B | 6 | |
| 1982 | 326298/C | 6 | |
| 1982 | KU-14194HB | 16 | |
| 1983 | 250407/A | 7 | 208,282 |
| 1983 | 250407/B | 50 | 1,152,644 |
| 1983 | 250407/C | 18 | 1,218,502 |
| 1984 | 250425/- | 48 | 1,273,699 |
| 1984 | 250425/A | 9 | 500,165 |
| 1984 | 250425/B | 4 | 536,345 |
| 1986 | 250466 | 18 | 438,001 |
| 1987 | 250469/3 | 14 | 444,384 |
| 1988 | 250469/4 | 29 | 1,124,586 |
| 1989 | 250469/A | 16 | 1,994,012 |
| 1990 | 250469/B | 17 | 2,242,493 |
(Note that four of the early versions do not have any easily discoverable serial numbers on them. Also note that the PET 64 and Educator 64 devices, which were basically “326298/A” C64 boards in an all-in-one computer, are also counted, but they sold in very small numbers. The same is true for the ill-fated “250469/B”-based C64GS game console. The portable SX-64 has a different board and is not counted.)
Now we can use the formula for the German Tank Problem to estimate the total number produced for each type of board for which we have the maximum observed serial number:
k is the sample size and m is the highest serial number observed.
| year | board | num_seem | max_seen | total |
| 1982 | 326298 | 4 | ||
| 1982 | 326298/A | 21 | 325,512 | 341,012 |
| 1982 | 326298/B | 6 | ||
| 1982 | 326298/C | 6 | ||
| 1982 | KU-14194HB | 16 | ||
| 1983 | 250407/A | 7 | 208,282 | 238,036 |
| 1983 | 250407/B | 50 | 1,152,644 | 1,175,696 |
| 1983 | 250407/C | 18 | 1,218,502 | 1,286,196 |
| 1984 | 250425/- | 48 | 1,273,699 | 1,300,233 |
| 1984 | 250425/A | 9 | 500,165 | 555,738 |
| 1984 | 250425/B | 4 | 536,345 | 670,430 |
| 1986 | 250466 | 18 | 438,001 | 462,333 |
| 1987 | 250469/3 | 14 | 444,384 | 476,125 |
| 1988 | 250469/4 | 29 | 1,124,586 | 1,163,364 |
| 1989 | 250469/A | 16 | 1,994,012 | 2,118,637 |
| 1990 | 250469/B | 17 | 2,242,493 | 2,374,403 |
For the board types without serial numbers, we can approximate the number of boards produced by scaling the result of board “326298/A” to the number of observed units of the missing ones. Since all boards without serials are from 1982 just like “326298/A”, it is probably not a very bad estimate.
(On the other hand, board “KU-14194HB” has only ever been put into machines produced in Germany and sold in Europe, so because of the bias of the database towards North America, this board type might be underrepresented.)
| year | board | num_seem | max_seen | total |
| 1982 | 326298 | 4 | 64,955 | |
| 1982 | 326298/A | 21 | 325,512 | 341,012 |
| 1982 | 326298/B | 6 | 97,432 | |
| 1982 | 326298/C | 6 | 97,432 | |
| 1982 | KU-14194HB | 16 | 259,818 | |
| 1983 | 250407/A | 7 | 208,282 | 238,036 |
| 1983 | 250407/B | 50 | 1,152,644 | 1,175,696 |
| 1983 | 250407/C | 18 | 1,218,502 | 1,286,196 |
| 1984 | 250425/- | 48 | 1,273,699 | 1,300,233 |
| 1984 | 250425/A | 9 | 500,165 | 555,738 |
| 1984 | 250425/B | 4 | 536,345 | 670,430 |
| 1986 | 250466 | 18 | 438,001 | 462,333 |
| 1987 | 250469/3 | 14 | 444,384 | 476,125 |
| 1988 | 250469/4 | 29 | 1,124,586 | 1,163,364 |
| 1989 | 250469/A | 16 | 1,994,012 | 2,118,637 |
| 1990 | 250469/B | 17 | 2,242,493 | 2,374,403 |
| 12,681,839 |
So according to this estimate, about 12.5 million Commodore 64 computers were produced, which matches the number above.
(By the way, about 6 million of these had the new smaller board “250469/X” with the HMOS chipset, and almost all machines since 1989, which is about 4.5 million, were sold in Europe.)
Interesting read. though you may want to have a chat with Wikipedia and their 17M number. With knowledge as easily obtainable as writing down what you want to know, mis information lurks everywhere hiding as legitimate research
Hmmm damn where did you know my serials of my caled ALDI C64….. this was one of the discounter seld in germany….
damn
lol
why did you know the serial of my last seld ALDI C64 ???
these are sold in a discounter in germany…
lol
why did you know my serialnumber of my c64 sold in ALDI???
sold at last in this discounter in germany……
lol
@Freshman: There seems to be a lot of confusion around the Aldi C64. Not all C64 systems sold at Aldi are actually “C64 Aldi” models. I got mine at Aldi in 1989, and it was the “C64G Supergame” and not the “Aldi”. It’s an Aldi if it’s the dark gray case with the light gray keyboard. “Supergame”, just like any C64G has the light gray case with the light gray keyboard.
what a waste of time trying to calculate on otherones estimations *lol* get a life!
Impressive and interesting read!
Information is beautiful, and you proved so.
as far as I know there are numbers of 17 millions c64 sold. 22 millions include the 5 million sales of the c64-compatible c128. So it’s not the best research if you don’t know how to get to those numbers. And Mr. Tramiel didn’t say “half an million”, but in an 1984 atari interview he states the number “near 300.000 a month” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9boeHRUeMPA). Also the Golden C64 was made for “a million C64 sold in Germany”, not worldwide, that was in December 1986. But, still interesing, but MY OPINION is that more then 12 million C64 sold.
@commodorefan: I show the sources of the 17, 22 and 30 million figures in sections two and three. In the video you provide, Tramiel indeed says “as many as 300,000 a month”, but my quotes (“half a million”, “between 22 and 30 million units”) are taken from the Tramiel video I link to. The Golden C64 did indeed celebrate 1 million devices in Germany at the end of 1986; at the same time, they had sold 6 million worldwide. I don’t see where you disagree with me.
By the way, Fred Bowen (http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredbowen), who was with Commodore from 1976 to 1994, says “over 12 million systems sold”.
sure, its OK what you say. but an interview of 1984 is more reliable then 25 years later. Well its very interesting and don’t want to make your work bad, never in mind, but I would say the truth is between 12 and 17 millions c64. Also not sure, if that includes SX64, C64GS etc (SX64 was 3 years on market, so it will have it’s numbers produced also not that much, but still a bit). So that’s what I think about. 🙂 Thanks for the article
dont forget the boards they have been refurbished / repaired by C= and sold again as new!
that also may give these big difference of mio’s numbers
From what I understand they got tons back that died from overheating and just piled them up in a warehouse and sent out new ones as it cost more to repair that than make new ones. All of my fiends had theirs die and we took them back to K-Matt and they just gave us new ones. Well our mothers took them back.
afair Commodore was listed on the stock exchange, so the numbers from back then[tm] could as well be just the usual “make my holding look sexier than it is” crap.
The KU board appears in NTSC version sold in the USA. I have a at least a couple of them and I don’t have a huge collection. 🙂
@Peter:
All machines with KU boards in your serial registry have been assembled in Germany, and everyone who owns one lives in a PAL country: http://c64preservation.com/dp.php?pg=registry
Are you saying you have one that has been built outside of Germany, or do you have a German one with NTSC chips that was sold in the US?
Very interesting article. However, I wonder how many SX-64’s that should be added to the figure of 12,5 million units? I guess atleast a few hundred thousand were manifactured atleast?
Also, what about the DREAN 64 that was licensed and assembled in Argentine (the boards came from Commodore though), are they counted? And the japanese katana c64?
I’ve always thought the figure was between 17 and 22 million INCLUDING the c128 (about 5 million units), in which case this estimate would seem quite accurate, but perhaps I got that wrong?
12.000.000 c64’s , built to last by the number. mine still works, power supply is nearing 30 years of age but it still rocks. Anyone know how many are left ?
Hate to burst the bubble, but the claim that the Commodore 64 is the “greatest selling single computer model of all time” may need to be revisited. How many of these sales are actually SX64s or 64Cs? Or Commodore Max or C64GS systems? If these systems are included in the figures then you are actually dealing with more than one single computer model.
There weren’t enough SX64/Max/GS systems to change that figure appreciably. While the C64C did sell in large numbers, it was functionally identical to the original breadbin model. The only internal changes were fairly minor in scope, and consistent with cost reduction measures for any sort of electronic device that has a long tail.
Nice article – maths don’t lie, so I agree with your <13 Mio. estimate.
What I do not like from today's view is the "greatest selling model of all time" because it is either "home computer" instead of "computer" or "80s" instead of "all time". If you count video game consoles or smartphones as computers – which I do – then there are better selling computers today.
@Erik: To paraphrase the Guinness Book entry, it lists the C64 as the first best selling single computer model of all time. This was widely in part due to its manufacturing tenure of about 12 years. That’s pretty long for just one type of device model. And even with mother revisions, it was still considered one model. Yes, the later 64C is also considered a C64 model and is most likely included in the numbers. And let’s not forget that popularity and passion is also attributed to the number sold. Commodore tried to stop C64 production a once (or twice?), but consumers demanded more, so Commodore kept going, even though they knew the C64 was starting to get obsolete and tried to focus on Amiga and PC technologies. New software and product devices are still being made for C64’s (yes, they are still around). If Guinness decides to redact the C64 as best selling model, they would probably have to back up their statements. Anyway, while video game consoles and smartphones are computers, they should be classified as such, and not as a “general computer device” with keyboard-monitor-case-etc that we all take for granted. ~Rob
I am trained to retail Ohio Scientific Challengers. What about the 128? Wasn’t that a better seller, considering that it rotated right while Commodore continues its’ Motorola inspired AMIGA00086 as cell phone data collection in TV news gathering?
I am a 48pin enthusiast and believe in compatability it is obvious to me that my C2-4p is neglected rediculously by un-reasonable home-schoolers, and can relatively easily be used to read Compact Disc Interactive programs, where I have been developing my masterpiece [CHRSt]. I have interest in APPLSOFT, in that I deserve support for my educational needs as a purchaser. I see no value in dVd sales. toxic asset ill-gotten gains
Truly no matter if someone doesn’t be aware of afterward its up to other people that they will help, so here it takes place.
500,000 computers a month at $600 each, $300,000,000 a month? So in the end they made $1,020,000,000 just from the Commodore 64? I still got my commodore 64 :p
Uh, George, C64s didn’t materialize out of the aether, you know. They still had to build the things, market them, and so on. Plus design them, a large upfront cost which had to be reclaimed. They probably spent a good part of that as well. (Plus, of course, the price fell as time went on.)
I see no mention of the 64c. I would think this model close enough to the original to be counted.
I was a bit confused by your text at first as to which serial number you used — that of the PCB or that of the machine itself. Based on some values you list, it seems to be the PCB.
The very first PCB serial # I found on a some C64 board picture was 252311. Searching the C64 serial registry you used, there were 13 entries listing that serial. Each entry listed a different machine serial, too, so it seems unlikely that this is the same C64 appearing multiple times (resold and entered again).
So I wonder if perhaps one of the basic assumptions in your analysis is flawed?
PS: Dude, almost all the comments here are spam… Your captcha doesn’t seem to work too well, perhaps time for some manual cleanup?
I guess the commadore was quite something at that time !
Sorry, the link for the 16 PCB versions is broken. I updated my website and made some changes. The new link is: http://www.c-64.org/de/mainboards.html
The number of different PCBs has changed as well. I found an ASSY-NO.250469 / PCB-NO.252311 / REV.1 which is the 17th Version. With the existence of 1, 3 and 4 a revision 2 seems plausible as well?
Sorry, IMHO your assumptions are wrong, because you ignored the fact that PCB numbers not only consist of numbers but also of a prefix (HKC, HKM, UAL, …). So there were at least three different serial number systems.
For example, I own C64E boards with these S/Ns (all of which are 250469 Rev. B):
HKC 1904830 dc 25/90 (OPC 1298A 0990)
HKM 2047440 dc 8/92 (OPC 1298C 5291)
HKM 2082419 dc 14/92 (OPC 1298A 0892)
And I *strongly* doubt C= produced only 180,000 PCBs in almost 2 years (from 25/90 to 14/92) when they produced 35,000 in only 6 weeks (from 8/92 to 14/92 – at a time the C64 start was already sinking).
So these must be different lines or different runs, which renders your calculations wrong.
Regards
SPQR
My family every time say that I am wasting my time here at web, except I know I am getting knowledge everyday by reading
thes good articles.
In 1982 the first C64 (then nicknamed Silver Label) sold only 80.000. Most of them were recalled and fitted with a new motherboard because of the failure of the PLA chip.
So some of these were not recalled and are still bugged (and working): they are almost like the famouse “gronchi rosa” in stamps 😀
*famous
For the record. My Silver Label has “Assy: 326298” and it is the number 1489 ever produced in Europe (PAL).
Every chip is original and the chip dates are between 17th week of 1982 (the 6510) and the 47th (kernal rom). So make that 5 😀
Bit of a necropost here, but I’ve got a 250407 Rev. B with a S/N of P01747981. Unless I’m mistaken, that adds 600K to that count. Am I mistaken?
So the US sales were 8 million total?
Your detailed breakdown of the various aspects of this amazing event helped me gain a deeper understanding of what makes the “Ultimate C64 Talk” so unique. The insights into the technology and history of the Commodore 64 were incredibly fascinating.
It’s wonderful to see dedicated individuals like you keeping the memory of such iconic technology alive and sharing it with the world. Thank you for your outstanding work!
Dear Michael, first I want to thank you for your awesome site, that I really appreciate. Especially the link to the “german tank problem” was very interesting! And I don´t want to diminish your statistical analysis achievements, but I think there are some points that would be worth a review:
* You cite Michael Tomczyk´s estimation (22 million) from his 1984 written book. Please keep in mind that it´s just an stimation made in 1984 (that I even haven´t found in the book by fulltext search)!
* Jack Tramiel: He left Commodore 1984, so his estimations after this point in time (2007, “22-30” million) are not better than anyone else´s estimations without any company-insider-basis. They mean almost nothing.
* Guinness Book: Are you the great “credible modern estimate” they cited, with 12.5 mio. units? It wouldn´t be the first time, that the Guinness Book had to retract a record claim!
* You list some generic sources, but they don´t get close to 1993 and c-64-wiki is not a “source”. What were the sources of your generic “sources” exactly?
* Your statistical analysis showed that “almost all machines since 1989, which is about 4.5 million, were sold in Europe”. This looks either like a problem with the statistical data or there must be some big enough reason, to clearly point out this phenomenon! Are european customers financially poor and far behind in computer technology against the rest of the world? I would expect such behaviour in 3rd world nations (e.g. Africa) but not for Europe! Maybe here are the lost 4.5 million (serial numbers worldwide without europe) hidden towards the “17 million sales” number? What about all the sales in South America, Australia, India, South-Africa? Any serials from there ever provided, and guess why not? Keep in mind, that “internet” meant 68kbaud modems in 1996, and there were zero websites asking you for a C64 serial number. But it was also 1996 where most people had upgraded to a PC and disposed the breadbin years ago. I remember people around me, who gifted me all of their VC20, C64 and C128 stuff back then.
So my final conclusion is the following: I would stick to Commodore’s official sales numbers (17 million), because they are official, consistent, and confirmed by Peter Kittel. Otherwise you suspect Commodore of some kind of fraud concerning their sales numbers, and you should think about it the following way: In terms of delighting shareholders Commodore would try to tell higher sales numbers. In terms of making money under the table Commodore would try to tell lower sale numbers. In terms of tax investigation Commodore would try to tell THE TRUTH.
Keep on your precious, awesome work, and I mean it!