Metal AM market by technology 2021

Metal Additive Manufacturing market by technology

Pre-pandemic level of machine sales could be held

Powder Bed Fusion continues to lead in terms of installed and annually sold machine units. Having the highest maturity index for metal Additive Manufacturing technology, PBF is used as production technology throughout all verticals. However, already in 2019 the number of sold units stagnated and was marked by no growth in sales. Despite this, many PBF system suppliers had an optimistic outlook and strong growth expectations as many industrial users are on track to prepare a larger scale use of AM technology. In 2020, these expectations could not be met as the pandemic led to delays or complete stops of sales projects. The struggles of many users and important industries for AM technology were followed by budget cuts and refocusing of efforts. Furthermore, the general restrictions in travel and transport did not only hinder the machine sales, but also the installation and service activities.

What you will find in this report section

Metal system sales by technology 2020
Installed metal base by technology 2020
Metal technology market share 2020 and 2025
Metal machine sales by technology 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer
Installed base by metal technology 2020 and 2025 – supplier vs. buyer forecast
Number of lasers in Powder Bed Fusion machines 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer
Supplier origin of sold metal machines 2020

Metal system sales by technology 2020

Marginal decrease of sales compared to 2019

The economic situation caused by the pandemic led to another year of stagnant sales in metal Additive Manufacturing, far below the supplier’s expectations. Compared the general economic development, the metal AM industry was able to defy the trend strictly in terms of sold units and reported only a slight decrease of sales to 1,991 units in 2020. Compared to 2019, this is a drop of
-0,4 %. However, at the same time, the generated revenue of system sales dropped by about -17 % in year-on-year comparison, indicating a price decline on average or a focus on smaller, more cost-effective machines.
Development of the Powder Bed Fusion system sales differs quite significantly from vendor and region. While some system suppliers reported a drop in unit sales by more than 50 %, others, especially the players on the APAC market, were able to increase their sales output.
The sales numbers of sinter-based Metal FDM and Binder Jetting systems were above the trend and reported a year-on-year sales increase of 22.5 % and 36.8 %, respectively. While remarkable, the sales were also below the expectations of the suppliers, that estimated in 2019 a yearly growth of 40 % for metal FDM and 87 % for Binder Jetting.

Installed metal base by technology 2020

More than 12,000 metal AM machines installed in the world

At the end of 2020, the ranking of installed metal Additive Manufacturing machines is led by Powder Bed Fusion with 10,598 systems. This results in a total market share of 86.0 %, a two-year consecutive decrease from 88.2 % in 2019 and 89.5 % in 2018. If this trend continuous will depend on future PBF innovations and improving price competitiveness. For example, low-cost LB-PBF systems have just recently entered the market and their vendors expect to significantly increase the market share in the future. Such low-cost LB-PBF come at a competitive price of below EUR 100,000 and could for example go head-to-head against Metal FDM systems for tooling applications.
Within the installed base of Powder Bed Fusion systems, Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion accounts only for a single digit market share. Currently, only GE ADDITIVE, or its predecessor ARCAM, has a significant share of EB-PBF machines in the market.
Sinter-based technologies of Metal FDM and Binder Jetting now make up for approximately 7 % of all installed systems. The range is from so-called Metal FDM desktop systems to large scale Binder Jetting setups.

Metal technology market share 2020 and 2025

High growth outlook across all metal AM technologies

Powder Bed Fusion continues to take the majority of the revenue market share with 81 % at EUR 0.72 billion in 2020. While the number of units sold was relatively stable, the year-on-year look at the sales revenue reveals a significant drop by -21.8 %. This concludes that the average sales price of PBF units became decreased significantly in 2020. Different factors have contributed to the large decrease in prices for PBF systems and the market situation is driven by trends pointing in opposite directions regarding unit prices.
Firstly, AMPOWER assumes the challenging market environment in 2020 following a stagnation from 2019 led to a difficult negotiation position for the vendors. This might trigger larger discounts from the list prices to conclude sales projects.
Additionally, the industry also experiences further diversification of the machine types. On one side, we see the introduction of large PBF machines, such as SLM SOLUTION’s new 12 laser system, or EOS subsidiary AMCM’s customized machines for space industry. The system price may well be in the multi-million-euro range. Furthermore, users tend to invest into machines with higher productivity, resulting in a higher share of multi-laser machines that come with a larger price tag. And yet, on the other side, low-cost machines have entered the market with prices below EUR 100,000. Thus, we see larger, more expensive machines as well as smaller, less complex and cheaper systems at the same time.
A further potential significant factor is the development in the region of APAC. The average price of metal AM systems in the APAC region is calculated to be 20 % to 30 % below that of the markets of AMER and EMEA. At the same time, APAC experienced relatively strong growth in terms of sold units and thus reducing the overall average unit price even further.

Metal machine sales by technology 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer

Positive sales forecast by suppliers

Yearly sales of Powder Bed Fusion systems will amount to 4,144 units in 2025, according to the supplier forecast. Buyers provide a more conservative outlook with an intention to buy 3,360 units. Contrary to the PBF sales, for the LB- and EB-DED segment, the buyer expectations exceed the supplier projections by more than 20 % resulting in a demand of 880 units in 2025. Turn-key Arc DED systems are expected to be sold in small numbers. Customized systems assembled from off-the-shelf components, such as arc welding heads and robots, are not included in the estimations. The self-made system solutions, seen for example in space applications building large fuel tanks, are currently not tracked by the AMPOWER Report.
The expectations from the Binder Jetting OEMs have been largely reduced. Whereas last year the outlook was given with a sales volume of 862 units in 2024, the updated expectations have been reduced to 490 units sold in 2025. This also matches the magnitude of the user’s expectations for 2025 at 309 units. While the new generation of Binder Jetting systems offer a high potential and productivity, intensive and time-consuming research and development activities may be required to prepare a successful production ramp-up. This delays the previously defined time plan of sales by the suppliers.
While Metal FDM suppliers expect high growth to achieve annual sales of 1,507 units in 2025, the users AMPOWER interviewed are hesitant to commit to this technology. Only a limited number of the industrial users contributing to the AMPOWER Report, plan to purchase systems of this technology over the coming years. Possibly, the technology will find customers in small metal job shops to complement the conventional metal technologies offered or being used for jigs and tool production. However, since these very small job shops are underrepresented in the collected data the machine sales expected by the user is very small in 2025.

In 2020, 1,487 units of Powder Bed Fusion technology were sold. This is slightly below the buyer forecast of 1,562 systems taken from the previous years’ AMPOWER Report 2020. The supplier’s predictions in 2020 were even higher at 1,864 sold units. Both predictions from the previous report were, however, made in the beginning of 2020 before the full impact and extent of the COVID-19 pandemic was fully known. Nonetheless, general consolidation in 2019 and 2020 after the large AM investments in 2017 and 2018 from the users had been considered in their prediction.
For 2021, both users and suppliers see a reverse in the declining trend as previously unrealized sales projects and freed up budgets will drive new machine sales. The suppliers forecast a total of 1,739 units sold for 2021. Larger PBF vendors have adopted more conservative projections and reducing their future sales targets significantly. The buyers plan for the year of 2021 an acquisition of 1,663 units. In 2025, around 3,600 compared to 4,100 PBF units will be sold according to buyers and supplier expectations, respectively.
The overall trend confirms that the consolidation and product development phase for PBF applications is completed in industries such as aviation, defense, space and energy and now they follow the medical sector into a serial production set-up with increasing machine demand.

Installed base by metal technology 2020 and 2025 – supplier vs. buyer forecast

Suppliers and buyer expectations converge for installed units in 2025

The suppliers expect an increase of the installed base from 12,320 units in 2020 to 33,792 units in 2025. The buyers expect a smaller, but overall similar growth to 30,726 units in 2025. The suppliers of metal AM systems and the buyers of these system used to differ strongly in their predictions of future sales figures. In last year`s AMPOWER Report the suppliers predicted approximately 40 % more installed machines in the 5-year forecast in comparison to the buyers. Now, especially the large PBF suppliers have approached a more conservative stance in their forecasts, as the relatively poor sales numbers of the last two years were far below the original projections.
The expectations of the suppliers and users for PBF, DED and Arc, Binder Jetting and the group of Other technologies are very similar. By now users have an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the different AM technologies and identify future applications suitable for AM. The largest discrepancy between supplier and buyer persists in the forecast of the Metal FDM technology. Here, the suppliers expect almost 4,600 units installed in 2025, whereas buyers are much more reserved as they still have to widely embrace this technology and identify more business cases. The industrial users contributing to the AMPOWER Report and therefore determining the expectations of the buyer group, do not show an increased interest in the Metal FDM technology.
Looking at the relative market share of installed units, it becomes apparent that the users continue to believe in the industrial use of Powder Bed Fusion technology. While they see a decline of market share from 86 % to 77 %, the adoption rate of the other technologies is not exponentially higher.
The buyers project to continue their investments into LB- and EB-DED technology. While almost all large production companies across industries have dedicated AM departments and good awareness of PBF and its capabilities, they generally still lack the same experience for DED technology and are intrigued to explore further applications feasible with LB- and EB-DED. Especially with LB-DED technologies the boarders between coating, repair and 3D printing applications are fluent and increase the usability of such systems.
As mentioned before, the largest discrepancy between supplier and customer expectations is in the sales volume of Metal FDM systems. This is mainly due to the fact, that some start-ups and established suppliers provide overly confident projections for their technology.
Expectations on market penetration of Binder Jetting for the projected 5-year horizon are very similar from both suppliers and buyers. In the past years, the data collected indicated a large discrepancy between the forecast for this technology segment. After the initial hype in 2018 driven by the announcements of DESKTOP METAL, GE ADDITIVE and HP entering the market and a disillusionment on the user side in 2019, knowledgeable users from the powder metallurgy industry see viable business cases and applications. Leading to similar expectations in machine sale levels as the suppliers foresee.

Number of lasers in Powder Bed Fusion machines 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer

Need for productivity drives sales of multi-laser machines

In 2020, almost 60 % of all sold LB-PBF machines came equipped with a single laser. As the years progress, this share is expected to further decrease. In 2025, the suppliers predict that only 30 % of all sold machines will have one laser, the users see this share even lower at 22 %. Larger, cost-effective production machines that are capable to drive the industrialization, have quick turn-around times and enable affordable products are required. The users forecast for 2025 that more than 50% of their purchased machines will have at least 3 or 4 lasers and a few even expect a larger number of lasers in their new PBF system.
The suppliers are prepared for this demand. Virtually every major machine OEM already offers a 3 or 4 laser system. Additionally, some drive the multi-laser innovation even further. SLM SOLUTIONS introducing its 12 laser system during Formnext 2020 was shortly followed by announcements of new machines from 3D SYSTEMS, 9 lasers, ADDITIVE INDUSTRIES, 10 lasers, and VELO3D, 8 lasers. The first 12-laser machine from SLM SOLUTIONS will be installed at the part manufacturing service bureau DIVERGENT, which is active in the automotive sector, an industry that is highly cost driven.

Supplier origin of sold metal machines 2020

AMER dominant in development of sinter-based technologies

In 2020, 41 % of all sold PBF machines originate from EMEA region. The share continuously dropped from previous years as vendors from other regions increased their sales numbers, however, for the coming years it is expected to stay at a constant level. Suppliers from APAC region increased their share over the last years to 39 % of all units in 2020.
Additionally, the majority of the machines from DED technologies, laser and electron beam based as well as for arc welding, currently come from EMEA.
The AMER region shows its dominance for sinter-based technologies of Metal FDM and Binder Jetting. Vendors of Metal FDM system have their headquarters almost exclusively in North America. Suppliers project that Binder Jetting will stay above 80 % market share for AMER in the years to come. The group of other technologies is well distributed throughout the world regions.

Data and sources

Published: 25 March 2021

Source: AMPOWER 2021

Disclaimer

Metal Additive Manufacturing market by technology

Pre-pandemic level of machine sales could be held

What you will find in this report section

Metal system sales by technology 2020

Marginal decrease of sales compared to 2019

Installed metal base by technology 2020

More than 12,000 metal AM machines installed in the world

Metal technology market share 2020 and 2025

High growth outlook across all metal AM technologies

Metal machine sales by technology 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer

Positive sales forecast by suppliers

Installed base by metal technology 2020 and 2025 – supplier vs. buyer forecast

Suppliers and buyer expectations converge for installed units in 2025

Number of lasers in Powder Bed Fusion machines 2020 and forecast 2025 – supplier vs. buyer

Need for productivity drives sales of multi-laser machines

Supplier origin of sold metal machines 2020

AMER dominant in development of sinter-based technologies

Data and sources

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