The good news about 3D printing growth keeps coming in. IDTechEx, another research analyst firm, also reports that 3D printing will grow into a $20 billion market, but by 2025, instead of 2020 as predicted in other reports.
There are many ways to look at the 3D printing market. IDTechEx used its database on 3D printers to create the following diagram for price versus speed.
This diagram shows the regions occupied by the different 3D printing technologies with thermoplastic extrusion in the bottom left hand corner (low price and low speed) to sand printing at the top right (high price and high speed) and selective laser melting of metals in the bottom right (high price and low speed).
The plastic printing technologies (thermoplastic extrusion, SLA/SLP, Material Jet and SLS) offering increasing speed with increasing price starting with thermoplastic extrusion and going through SLA/DLP and jetting to SLS. For plastic printers, the price vs speed tradeoff is the single biggest key differentiator between the products on the market.
In contrast, metal printers vary greatly in terms of speed but vary relatively little in terms of price. Specifically, speeds range from 1 to 3,000mm³/s whereas prices range from $150k to $3m. When it comes to metal 3D printers, price is clearly not the main differentiator.
In terms of progress in 3D printing technologies, the upper left quadrant represents printers that are both cheap and fast. This is clearly sparsely populated today. Several players are pushing into this region including Carbon3D’s high speed vat photopolymerisation and HP’s high speed Multijet Fusion.
Similar diagrams along with comprehensive study are provided in the IDTechEx report “3D Printing: 2015-2025: Technologies, Markets, Players.”
