3D Printing Market Size

Evaluating the 3D Printing Market Size

3D Printing market continues strong growth

The overall 3D Printing market for metal and polymer systems, material and part manufacturing services is valued at over EUR 9 billion with a projected growth of CAGR between 17-20 % until 2027. The industrial polymer 3D Printing market is much larger than its metal equivalent. However the metal segments recently is growing with a higher CAGR. While system sales revenues in both markets are at a similar level, material and part manufacturing suppliers are much more developed for polymers resulting in a larger share of revenue.

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3D Printing market size by technology

The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report shows that the industry is segmented into over 30 different technologies. In the Report, the 3D Printing market is segmented into the 6 dominating metal technologies and 7 polymer technologies, while the other, mostly early stage technologies, are accounted to in the “others” section.

In the metal section, Powder Bed Fusion makes most of the currently installed base. Other metal technologies that contribute to the 3D Printing market are Binder Jetting, Metal Filament Fabrication, Arc welding technologies or Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing as well as Powder DED technologies. In Polymer, Fused Filament Fabrication makes the majority of machine sales, but Powder Bed Fusion technologies dominate the Polymer 3D Printing market in terms of system revenues. The AMPOWER Report further segments into Pellet Material Extrusion, Vat Polymerization and Area-wise Vat Polymerization and Material Jetting.

3D Printing market by industry

The medical industry dominates the 3D Printing Market in both metal and polymer technologies. Together with the other strong industries, Automotive and Industrial, those three segments unite over 35% of system sales revenues. The 3D Printing Report also report specifically about Civil Aviation, Defense and Space as each separate industry. Part manufacturing suppliers and research institutions are also reported as separate industry segments and stand for around 13% of machine sales revenue in the 3D Printing market. Other important industries that are mentioned in the 3D Printing Report are Dental, Energy and Powerplants, Oil and Gas, Tooling and Molding, Rail and Naval and finally the steadily growing Consumer 3D Printing Market.

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References

What our customers say

“Newcap Partners is an Investment Banking firm with a proven track record in advanced Manufacturing and 3D Printing. For our transactions, we rely on valid market data for supporting our transactions as well as educating the investment community on the additive manufacturing market. The AMPOWER Report, backed by the expertise and assistance of the AMPOWER team, has emerged as an invaluable resource, providing us with independent and well sourced information that we can rely on with confidence.”

Danny Piper
Managing Partner, NewCap Partners

The material segmentation of the 3D Printing Market Report

Materials are driving new applications and almost every week, suppliers announce new materials in both metal and polymer 3D Printing Markets. The AMPOWER Report segments into 8 different metal alloys and 15 polymer materials. The most dominant material in metal is the Titanium alloy group and specifically the Ti-6Al-4V alloy. This material is widely used in a range of medical, space and aviation applications. Next to Titanium, Cobalt and Nickel based alloys play a major role in similar industries. Nickel can be found in many turbine applications where high temperatures are demanding for IN718 or IN625 type alloys. The 3D Printing Report also segments into stainless steel and tool steel alloys. Finally copper alloys have a growing market share and Aluminum alloys can be found in many automotive and industrial applications.

In Polymer, PA12 materials are dominating the 3D Printing Market. They cover over one third of the global material consumption. TPU and PA6 are other rapidly growing thermoplastic materials. Other materials mentioned in the report with specific consumption values are PA11, ABS, PP, PLA, PET and PETG as well as PEEK, PEKK, ULTEM, PEI and PC. The Liquid Resin 3D Printing Market is segmented into the type of resin. The largest share make medical and dental grade resins. The other two segments mentioned in the 3D Printing Report are Industrial and Prototype resins.

3D Printing market size segmentation by region

The basic regional segmentation of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report is given by the 3 regions AMER, EMEA and APAC. In many graphs, those regions have further breakdowns and report specific numbers of e.g., China, Germany and the US. All three main regions have similar sized 3D Printing Markets. However historically, EMEA and specifically Europe and Germany have a stronger footprint in metal 3D Printing technologies. Germany is home to many of todays leading suppliers of metal Powder Bed Fusion systems with EOS, SLM SOLUTIONS, CONCEPT LASER GE ADDITIVE or TRUMPF. This also meant that users have a traditionally high footprint of metal 3D Printing systems in Europe. However, this changed in the past years once growth kicked in on many users in the US. Today, the US is one of the 3D Printing Markets with the strongest grow especially in metal. Also, many new technologies such as Binder Jetting are mainly developed by US-based companies like DESKTOP METAL, making this 3D Printing Market one of the most attractive ones.

On the other hand, the Polymer 3D Printing Market was early dominated by VAT Technologies developed in the US, making this market an early adopter. Also, many Material Extrusion companies today have their base in the us while in Powder Bed Fusion, some European Companies have a strong footprint. The APAC market is dominated by China. The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report segments also into the Japanese and Indian market. However, the Chinese market is growing mostly with domestic customers and has only a small footprint outside of APAC or even outside of China. The 3D Printing Report by AMPOWER report about installed base and system origin of all major technology groups in each region. Also, the database of the 3D Printing Report allows for screening of all known suppliers of systems, materials and part manufacturing services in both metal and polymer 3D Printing.

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Data acquisition

The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report

The 3D Printing report from AMPOWER shows a strong growth with a CAGR between 20-30 % in the past. The 3D Printing market volume is segmented in metal and polymer technologies. The 3D Printing report is based on over 23 thousand data points collected by the AMPOWER Team every year. In this article, we introduce the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report and the methodology of the AMPOWER 3D Printing market analysis.

additive manufacturing report 2024 mockup open

Selected references

The Key Features of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report

The 3D Printing Report by AMPOWER is renewed every year and published in March each year. The report is completely independent and is based on directly collected data from suppliers and users of the industry. The basis for all data is the installed base and the newly sold machines each year. An emphasis of the report is on the forecast especially based on user predictions. The 3D Printing Market is dominated by innovative industrial users, who give AMPOWER Insights into their production roadmap and 3D Printing strategy.
Besides market numbers, the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report features deep dives into each metal and polymer 3D Printing technology. An annual maturity assessment of each technology gives an overview of how advanced technologies are and how widely they are used by companies. The Report also features a database with over 2.400 entries featuring all known suppliers of 3D Printing technology. Another key feature of the 3D Printing Report is the application database with over 100 real applications. The emphasis of the database is on real end applications which exceeded the level of “just showcases” and made it into production.

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Collecting the annual 3D Printing Market data

The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report is based on direct interviews with supplier and user of the industry. In the first two months of each year, AMPOWER is conducting interviews with mainly system supplier, part manufacturing supplier, material supplier and user. In those interviews, the AMPOWER team collects data about newly sold or installed systems, regional, industrial and technology segmentations, outlook and company growth rates. User and part manufacturing suppliers also give insights into their machine utilization of the past years and the material consumption. The 3D Printing Market player trust AMPOWER with that delicate information because none of the data is being directly published. This means, AMPOWER does not publish for example sales numbers of specific vendors or installed bases of specific users. All data of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report is aggregated and analyzed. This however means, that AMPOWER has to aggregate some of the information. For example, ARCAM, a company of GE ADDITIVE, was for a long time the only vendor of Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion (EBM) systems. To avoid publishing direct sales numbers, the EBM system sales were aggregated under the category Powder Bed Fusion together with the much larger 3D Printing Market of Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion. This might change however in the near future since several new vendors emerged on the market in the past years.

Why AMPOWER Report

Good reasons for the AMPOWER Report

The authors combine over 50 years of experience in Metal Additive Manufacturing as well as over 250 international customer projects and trained more than 300 engineers worldwide. The report is the first of its kind, that combines direct personal interviews with users and suppliers of the industry. The system suppliers that contributed direct input for the AMPOWER report represent 90 % of the worldwide installed base of metal Additive Manufacturing machines. The users, who contributed direct input for the report, represent between 5-10 % of the worldwide installed base.

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Over 300 personal interviews
Responding system suppliers represent 90% of installed base
Authors with more than 250 international AM projects
Complete independence and transparency
Reliable data with regular updates
Direct access to all data via report portal

Methodology on 3D Printing Market size assessment

The personal interviews were conducted directly by AMPOWER staff. The respondents were typically the respective 3D Printing managers or directors with insight into the technological as well as economical company figures. The total number of data points of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report data acquisition exceeds 34,000. Additional historical data and qualitative information was used to describe the 3D Printing Market most accurately.

The system suppliers that contributed with direct input to the 3D Printing Report represent more than 90 % of the worldwide installed base of metal and polymer 3D Printing systems. Secondary sources such as indirect data sources, press releases, financial reports, etc. were used to provide coverage of the remaining installed 3D Printing machine base. The machine buyers, or users, that contributed direct input for the report represent 10 % and 4 % of the worldwide installed base of metal and polymer 3D Printing systems, respectively.

More than half of all respondents of the supply chain are associated to companies with revenues below EUR 10 million. Many of the supplier group companies are startups and therefore small and micro in terms of revenue. The market valuation of some of these entities might far exceed the perceived company category, however, since they have not yet introduced their products into the market or are still in the growth phase with high costs, the revenue is still low.

The largest share of buyer or user respondents of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report are very large companies with a revenue of above EUR 1 billion. 3D Printing is still mainly a B2B market, where hardly any components are sold directly to a private customer. Many large companies use AM to produce components for larger machines, systems or products, that provide a functional and ultimately cost benefit.

The share of large companies also well reflects the capital-intensive 3D Printing technology. A full process chains is required for successful in-house production, which not only includes the printer system, but also design and simulation capabilities, periphery for post processing and finishing as well as engineering capacity.

The polymer 3D Printing supplier landscape is strongly divided into a B2B and B2C market. Today many part manufacturing suppliers have established separate entities or organizational structures to provide their services and product to industrial customers as well as private customers. The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report 2023 only covers the industrial 3D Printing activities neglecting system sales below EUR 10,000 and material clearly targeted at private consumers.

Goal-oriented, trustworthy, independent

Corporate values influence data representation

During the gathering of the market data, many respondents trusted us with confidential insights into their business. Following the corporate values of AMPOWER – goal-oriented, trustworthy and independent – we of course respected the confidentiality of all respondents by not disclosing individual company names or linking them to the individual data. All data from system suppliers are grouped to their respective technology. Material suppliers, service suppliers and users are categorized accordingly. Additional publicly available information on certain companies and events is added where it was deemed appropriate.

Evaluating the 3D Printing Market Size

3D Printing market continues strong growth

3D Printing market size by technology

3D Printing market by industry

References

What our customers say

The material segmentation of the 3D Printing Market Report

3D Printing market size segmentation by region

Data acquisition

The AMPOWER 3D Printing Report

Selected references

The Key Features of the AMPOWER 3D Printing Report

Collecting the annual 3D Printing Market data

Why AMPOWER Report

Good reasons for the AMPOWER Report

Over 300 personal interviews

Responding system suppliers represent 90% of installed base

Authors with more than 250 international AM projects

Complete independence and transparency

Reliable data with regular updates

Direct access to all data via report portal

Methodology on 3D Printing Market size assessment

Goal-oriented, trustworthy, independent

Corporate values influence data representation

Related topics

Table of Contents 2024

Metal Additive Manufacturing Market

Polymer Additive Manufacturing Market

Other Reports

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