Last week, we spent considerable amount of time analyzing the 3D printers across the world to understand the 3D printers and 3D printing market. We collected a list of around 300 3D printers from the web and listed the properties of these printers like Build Volume, Depth, Height, Width, Technology, Price and so on. We organized the data and created charts to understand the data we collected. Below are the charts. Each charts is followed by our interpretation of the data in the chart.
(a) USA is a leading market for innovation in 3D printing and also adoption of 3D printing. A massive 41% of all the printers we collected are built in USA. As we primarily relied on world wide web for the data and as our primary search language is English, it is natural that we gathered more of English data. But even otherwise it is proven that USA is the leading market for 3D printers.
(b) Then comes China with a 7% market share. We believe China market share should be higher than 7%, given that the entire manufacturing happens in China and so there are many companies in China re-engineering the 3D printers.
(c) It is followed by Netherlands, the birthplace for 3D printing. As it is a small country, 6% market share seems reasonable.
(d) Poland is a surprising entry in the list. It has a market share of 5% in 3D printing market. One possible explanation is that most companies in Western Europe are using Poland for their manufacturing work.
DIY (Reprap Printers) constitute a small part of the total 3D printer range. 71% of the 3D printers present in the market are fully assembled ones.
A massive 61% of 3D printers available in the market can print between 100 cm and 200 cm in Z-Axis. There is a massive need for high build volume printers with a big Z axis dimension. But most printers available in the market aren’t offering that high build volume. This explains the constraints faced by 3D printer manufacturers. Higher Z-Axis value leads to failure of the print due to warping and many other reasons.
Most 3D printers in the market offer a depth between 100 cm and 200 cm.
When it comes to width, most 3D printers can print between 100 and 300 cm without much difficulty.
In terms of build volume, most 3D printers offer a build volume between 7,500 and 10,000 ccm. In dimensional terms, it is 200 cm x 200 cm x 250 cm
In terms of pricing, most 3D printers are priced between 500 and 1000 USD. There are good number of 3D printers priced between 1000 USD and 2000 USD.
In the market, a massive 85% of 3D printers are FDM based. FDM is the most popular technology in the market and is also the most affordable one. Then comes SLA (and DLP) with around 12% market share. SLA printers are becoming affordable these days and many companies are building low cost SLA 3D printers.
Summing it all, 3D printer market is still very nascent. Most of the 3D printers available in the market are low build volume printers. In the next 2-3 years, we shall find more high build volume printers within the price range of 500 to 1000 USD.
