The BBCs were niche products in Britain where they were mostly used in education. They were too expensive so parents bought Sinclair Spectrums and Commodore 64s. Even the cheap BBC Model B, the Electron, was a poor seller.

We had an Electron. It was a fun little machine, that you could expand to a fun big machine. Originally 32kB RAM and 32kB ROM, ours eventually ended up with 224kB ROM due to all the expansions you could hook on the back of that thing. Didn't really help its stability, though.