Polymer AM market by technology 2021

Polymer Additive Manufacturing market by technology

Industrial polymer Additive Manufacturing market by technology

Currently 16 different polymer Additive Manufacturing technologies are commercially available. Many of them in an early market penetration stage looking for fast growth and increasing market share.
Filament Based Material Extrusion continuous to lead the way in polymer Additive Manufacturing.
The spread of this technology will continue to dominate the installed base in the future. However, other technologies will gain share in the next 5 years and thus further diversify the market. Particularly, Area-wise Vat Polymerization is projected to gain market share as productivity increases are expected.

What you will find in this report section

Polymer system sales by technology 2020
Installed polymer base by technology 2020
Polymer technology market share 2020 and 2025
Polymer machines sales by technology 2020 and supplier forecast 2025
Installed base by technology 2020 and forecast 2025 - supplier vs. buyer
Supplier origin of sold polymer machines 2020

Polymer system sales by technology 2020

Total machine sales reached 22,562 during global pandemic

In total 22,562 system have been sold in 2020 globally. With 7,420 systems the Filament Based Material Extrusion is leading the system sales in 2020. Vat Polymerization and Area-wise Vat Polymerization system sales are closing the gap. With 5,821 and 5,610 both technologies are responsible for half of the system sales. These technologies, which are based on the use of thermoset material, are also increasing their impact on the market by enabling higher productivity and more industrial applications. During the COVID-19 pandemic these technologies were often used to locally provide necessary medical supplies in a fast manner.
The Material Jetting system sales reached 2,061 units in 2020. In the category of Powder Bed Fusion, 1,549 units were sold 2020. This market experiences increasing competition by new market entrants, such as FORMLABS, as well as rise of low-cost system sales.
The smallest impact on system sales has the Pellet Based Material Extrusion technology with only 39 systems sold in 2020. AMPOWER believes also in the potential of this technology, but the widespread adoption by industry has yet to take place.

Installed polymer base by technology 2020

Polymerization technologies dominate the polymer AM Market

At the end of 2020, the ranking of installed industrial polymer Additive Manufacturing machines is led by Filament Based Material Extrusion with 53,674 systems. This results in a market share of about 40 %. Within the Filament Based Material Extrusion market a certain dynamic can be observed. Several new system suppliers have launched Material Extrusion solutions using high performance materials such as PEEK, PEKK and PEI. This trend has increased over the last couple years and AMPOWER expects will continue grow. Main reason is the expiration of a patent by STRATASYS, that protected an evenly heated build chamber. This feature is critical regarding the processibility of high-performance polymers.
The Powder Bed Fusion system segment, which includes Selective Laser Sintering by 3D SYSTEM or EOS and others, as well as Multi Jet Fusion technology by HP and VOXELJET, has reportedly reached an installed base of 8,219 systems in 2020. With the mainly high-priced systems this category is as of 2020 the smallest category in terms of the installed base, apart from Pellet based Material Extrusion (145 Systems), however, it leads in sales revenue.
More than 50 % of the polymer Additive Manufacturing market is made of polymerization technologies such as Vat Polymerization, Area-wise Vat Polymerization and Material Jetting. These technologies use thermoset resin materials. Within these technologies the originating technology of Vat Polymerization, also known as Stereolithography (SLA), accounts for 36,056 systems installed as of 2020. With this share Vat Polymerization is the second most used technology in the polymer market followed by Material Jetting (18,079) and Area-wise Vat Polymerization (16,951) systems.

Polymer technology market share 2020 and 2025

Material Extrusion expected to further increase market share

In 2020, Powder Bed Fusion and Filament Based Material Extrusion generated more than half of the revenue of the system suppliers, which sums up to EUR 0.94 billion. Especially the PBF technologies are mostly cost intensive in the acquisition. This leads to a domination of system sales revenue of a comparable small share of installed systems.
On the other side, processes based on the use of thermoset resins sum up to a share of 43 % of the entire market. This share can be explained by the high number of systems sales, especially regarding the Vat Polymerization and Area-wise Vat Polymerization systems.
The forecast for 2025 leads to an overall market volume of EUR 2.6 billion. The suppliers project that in 5 years the revenue made by Filament Based Material extrusion and Area-wise Vat Polymerization will take the lead from Powder Bed Fusion systems. The share of Powder Bed Systems is expected to drop to 21 %, which equals to EUR 0.55 billion.
AMPOWER expects that the Filament based Material Extrusion market will further mature and exploit new areas of application. In particular, Continuous Fiber Material Extrusion processes are expected to take a bigger part within the Material Extrusion technology share. Also, other composite-based polymer AM processes are predicted to increase their maturity level significantly, find industrial applications and hence grow over the coming years.
With an expected annual growth of 47 % Pellet Based Material Extrusion is also expected to pick up speed. The advantages of the process such as the relatively low feedstock cost and high variety of materials lead to intensified R&D effort and potential use in industry. However, the process must live up to its expectation and prove its advantages to be ready for widespread industrial use.

Polymer machines sales by technology 2020 and supplier forecast 2025

PBF system are expected to sevenfold the number of sold systems in 2025

The industrial system suppliers present a positive outlook on their sales figures over the coming years. In PBF, the suppliers expect to almost sevenfold their annual system sales until 2025. The suppliers of the other polymer AM technologies share this positive outlook but predict a lower increase of the systems sold.
Another high growth is expected regarding the number of units sold of Area-wise Vat Polymerization systems. With an estimated number of 21,733 units sold in 2025, the sales would almost quadruple compared to 2020. Markets such as the dental industry have successfully adopted this technology and push the boundaries in terms of industrial use. This predicted development would lead to a change of market leadership from Material Extrusion systems towards the Area-wise Vat Polymerization. However, with the expected 16,953 system sales Material Extrusion is further increasing the impact on the industrial polymer Additive Manufacturing.
The current development of polymerization processes has a direct influence on the share of other technologies. Especially the Material Jetting process is expected to forfeit some of the share of the system sales over the years. Especially the high productivity of upcoming Area-wise Vat Polymerization systems takes the focus of the, until now mainly for prototyping used technology. An explanation might be the relatively low competition on the market, which leads to less R&D activities in this field. It is therefore expected that Material Jetting will decrease its share of system sales over the years.
It is also expected that the Area-wise Vat polymerization takes over a relatively large share of the Vat Polymerization process. In total the suppliers project, a growing share for Area-wise Vat Polymerization system from 25 % to 35 % of the total market.

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

Suppliers expect and annual growth of 28% of the installed base

The suppliers of polymer AM systems expect a strong growth of system sales in the coming 5 years. For 2025 a worldwide installed base of more than 450,000 industrial polymer AM systems is projected. This number is pushed especially by the high expectations of the Area-wise Vat Polymerization technology. The installed base is projected to be the fastest growing technology with regards to the established technologies. The CAGR of 34 % is expected to arrive at an installed base of 121,373 systems in 2025.
The upcoming technologies in Pellet Based Material Extrusion and Others are the only technologies with a higher expected growth. Pellet Based ME, for example, is expected to increase the number of installed systems by more than factor 9. However, its installed base is rather low today. Other technologies are also predicted to increase their share with a CAGR of 57 %.
According to the system suppliers the development of the technology distribution on the market is not expected to change significantly over the next 5 years. While PBF technologies are forecast to slightly increase their share of the installed base until 2025, Filament Based Material Extrusion will reduce its share from 40 % to 35 %.
This development can be explained by the higher expected growth rates of the former technology. Especially the newly offered low priced PBF systems will make this technology make accessible and increase the installed base. With an expected CAGR of 40 % regarding the installed base, PBF technology is expected achieve largest growth compared to the other established technologies. The installed base of PBF systems is projected to account for roughly 45,000 units in 2025 – the smallest share of the established technologies.
However, this supplier expectation is not shared by the buyers. While they see a lower demand regarding PBF systems, they expect to increase their investments in Filament Based Material Extrusion systems. Two developments on the market speak for this. Firstly, the new lower priced PBF system are yet to prove their capabilities within industrial settings. Secondly, more and more deviations of the Material Extrusion technology are creating yet unknown use cases for the buyer. This might account for the differences between the expectations.
Overall, AMPOWER believes, that the polymer Additive Manufacturing market can expect a significantly greater adoption in industrial production. The COVID-19 pandemic may have a rather positive than negative long-term effect due the awareness that was created. Companies have considered AM during the crisis to mitigate the risks of single source supply chains. Despite the limits AM and its parts have, it can become a flexible alternative for some selected applications. The key is, as always with AM, to find the right application where AM makes sense. Additionally, upcoming technologies, which are not yet production ready, will further mature the market in the future.

Supplier origin of sold polymer machines 2020

Most industrial polymer system are provided by AMER based system

As of 2020 most system originated from AMER region. In all established technology categories system suppliers from AMER dominated the market by means of sold systems.
Within the next years AMPOWER expects a slight change of this dominance. EMEA as well as APAC are picking up speed with regard to Material Extrusion and the suppliers forecast to take a bigger share. Numerous competitive system suppliers within these regions are in the midst of their development and are now able to take advantage of some expired patents.
A similar picture can be observed regarding the Area-wise Vat Polymerization. The dominance of AMER is expected to be reduced. Especially APAC is intensifying the development of Area-wise Vat Polymerization systems. AMPOWER is predicts that APAC region will increase their share of installed base of the Area-wise Vat Polymerization market.
Only the Pellet Based Material Extrusion is so far led by EMEA region. Most system suppliers have their headquarters in Europe.

Data and sources

Published: 26 March 2021

Source: AMPOWER 2021

Disclaimer

Polymer Additive Manufacturing market by technology

Industrial polymer Additive Manufacturing market by technology

What you will find in this report section

Polymer system sales by technology 2020

Total machine sales reached 22,562 during global pandemic

Installed polymer base by technology 2020

Polymerization technologies dominate the polymer AM Market

Polymer technology market share 2020 and 2025

Material Extrusion expected to further increase market share

Polymer machines sales by technology 2020 and supplier forecast 2025

PBF system are expected to sevenfold the number of sold systems in 2025

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

Suppliers expect and annual growth of 28% of the installed base

Supplier origin of sold polymer machines 2020

Most industrial polymer system are provided by AMER based system

Data and sources

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