Desktop 3D printing is in decline claims new research by London based firmCONTEXT。“Shipments of Personal/Desktop 3D printers saw their first ever year-on-year drop in Q1 2018 with 3% fewer printers shipping globally than in Q1 2017,” reads the report.
How does this research match the experience of the wider 3D printing industry?
CONTEXT analyst Chris Connery avoids the,seemingly seasonal，宣布陷阱death of 3D printing*. Indeed, the primary focus of the report – like this site – is the industrial 3D printing industry.
“This near-term downturn is expected to be an anomaly rather than a trend: vendors like3D Systems are again focusing on this class of printers”，康纳利（Connery）作为上下文全球分析的副总裁说。
Data collection in this market segment is no easy task. Many active participants are not listed on a stock exchange, and thus as private ventures they are neither subject to auditor scrutiny nor regular publication of financial data.
Yet, as our 3D Printing Industry team spends a sizeable amount of time with manufacturers, end-users and the wider 3D printing community – we are probably better positioned than many when it comes to telling which way the wind is blowing.
Industrial 3D printing forecast for 2018
背景下，工业/专业3D打印部门占所有全球3D打印机收入的81％。据报道，这里的业务是稳定的，即使在传统上季节性较弱的第一季度，该细分市场也同比增长14％。
Industrial 3D printing trade for the remainder of 2018 is set to be brisk. “We are forecasting a 21% Y/Y printer shipment growth in the Industrial/Professional segment currently ,” says Connery.
The CONTEXT report differs in methodology from other analysis of the additive manufacturing sector in that shipments rather than sales – or orders – are reported. Under the accrual basis of accounting sales can be recorded prior to physical dispatch of goods. The most recent Wohlers Report records an80% increase in metal additive sales from 2016 to 2017。
As principal author Terry Wohlers told 3D Printing Industry at the time, “Desktop Metalsales, reported for the first time, contributed 20.2% of the total.”
CONTEXT research found, “Desktop Metal shipments seem to still be delayed with one Reseller indicating volume shipments not until the end of the year or into 2019.” Connery says, “So we also saw great demand for Desktop Metal machines in 2017, with great pre-orders, but have not seen bulk shipments yet against those orders.”
“市场上这个工业/专业方面最大的通配符可能是台式金属”
Personal and desktop 3D printing forecasts
As the industrial additive manufacturing segment boasts not only substantially greater revenues and readies itself for seemingly inevitable expansion, the desktop market may feel dismayed by the CONTEXT finding that in the sub $2500 category of Personal/Desktop 3D printers 3% fewer units shipped year-on-year. In part, this decline is attributed to “the lack of a true consumer market.”
“A true consumer market would be akin to “a 3D Printer in every house. For sure the Hobbyist market is also a consumer market (and a key market for desktop 3D Printers) but the nature of a hobby is that you have to “work at it” and “tinker” with it continually where more “True” consumer devices are plug and play. True consumer markets are marked by significantly higher volumes (millions of units instead of tens or hundreds of thousands of products).”
How does the experience of enterprises working in this market match the CONTEXT data?
TheXYZPrintingDa Vinci Jr is still one of the best selling 3D printers on Amazon. Vinson Chien, Director at XYZPrinting, tells me “XYZ still remains stable in Q1, 2018. Of course, growth is not as fast as previous years.”
Chien adds, “I suspect that the market will have dramatic growth in the near future, as there is still a large amount of people who are unaware of 3D printing. We will undoubtedly reach this untapped market, through community innovation, so we are not worried about small market fluctuations.”
“我们将继续向市场提供入门级打印机（2500美元），但我们也在扩大投资组合。我们刚刚打开了商业印刷机系列，并用Davinci Color扩展了中层打印机。有了如此多种产品，我们希望我们的投资组合中的销售有所不同。”
U.S. 3D printer manufacturers were also surprised by the news.
Ben Malouf, Director of MarketingAleph Objects, Inc.said, “There was year-over-year growth in Q1 for LulzBot 3D Printers (as opposed to the decline seen in the overall personal/desktop segment.) This growth shows there is continued strong demand for versatile, reliable desktop solutions in professional and educational environments, and we are excited about the high demand for the new LulzBot Mini 2 released in June 2018.”
For a broader perspective, 3D Printing Industry asked a well established US reseller for comment.MatterhackersCEO Lars Brubaker told us, “MatterHackers has seen strong growth in all areas of 3D printing throughout Q1 and Q2 of this year, including the sub-$2500 range.”
The state of the desktop 3D printing industry in 2018
该新报告是否提供了有关3D打印市场状况的有用信息，如果不是在哪里可以找到此信息的更好的地方？
Indicators of general trends around desktop 3D printing can be found in the users of file sharing platforms likeThingiverse和MyMiniFactory。For Thingiverse, web traffic reached a high of 12 million sessions at one point in Q1 2017, the comparative figure for Q1 2018 was 20 million. The same data for MyMiniFactory shows that traffic increased by 80%.
In retail, the supermarket chainAldi开始季节性出售3D打印机雷电竞app下载，看看这个圣诞节是否重复实验会很有趣。
寻找地球上最强大的零售商，出现了另一幅图片。Amazonrecently introduced3D printing filament as an AmazonBasics product。这意味着精通数据的电子商务网站正在对市场需求的简单经济力量做出反应。
However, beyond this recent move a consideration of the best selling 3D printers on Amazon should be made. And more importantly whether they are included in the recent data. The current best selling 3D printers on Amazon include theComgrowCreality Ender 3和geeetechAcrylic Prusa I3 Pro B Unassembled 3D printer DIY Kit. Notably many in the sub-$2500 segment are enjoying an increased range of low cost ways to work with 3D printers – specifically machines that come in kit form.
In particular, Anet and Creality are among 2018’s most purchased, bought, sought after, and discussed by the 3D printing community. The CONTEXT data includesPrusa Researchkits, but, “we generally do not include kits directly in our assessment by brand and generally only include finished goods. So Anet and Creality are not specifically included by name but are generally assessed in our “Others” category which we assess by way of tracking other areas of the Supply Chain (like hot ends).”
Adjusting the basket
Price tracking indexes, such as the UK Retail Price Index, often use a “basket” of commonly purchased goods as a proxy to comment on factors like inflation. Over time, the contents of this basket is likely to change, this is to ensure the goods in the basket still reflect average consumer purchasing behavior.
While the sub $2500 may have captured many 3D printers in the past including Makerbot, Tiertime, Flashforge, XYZ, Raise and Ultimaker the market has moved.
Now the sub $1000 bracket is where a majority of the lower priced 3D printers can be found. Many of the aforementioned group havesought to move into a higher price bracket as they market 3D printers to a engineering and design groups within enterprises。The most recent 3D printers from Raise3D and Ultimaker are solid examples of this approach.
The old basket of mainly European and North American 3D printers must now be adjusted to reflect the current market. In 2018 many of the best selling 3D printers come from Chinese enterprises, and frequently are sold in kit form.
可以说这带来了混杂的祝福。2013年，诸如UP+2之类的3D打印机的价格约为2000美元，现在的价格为2000美元。但是，尽管桌面3D打印在定价方面可能更容易访问，但在销售支持后的消费者经验有时会被认为是较低的 - 尽管并非总是如此。
The commodification of consumer 3D printing
以某种方式可以谈论3D打印的商品化。
Therecent exit of Printrbot本周从桌面3D打印机发出的，遵循Reprap Pioneer Adrian Bowyer博士的决定cease commercial activity at RepRapPro in January 2016。
而广受喜爱和尊敬的π的离开oneers from the 3D printing market could be interpreted as a negative indication, the counterpoint is thatthe seeds sown ten years ago by the RepRap projectare in one way bearing fruit.
It is true that many best-selling 3D printers – especially at lower price points – are Open Source in neither name nor nature, yet it is clear they share a lineage. While it may be apparent to those in the 3D printing industry that the CONTEXT report does not mark the death of 3D printing, such a phrase is likely be a headline (as it is often during summertime) in the coming weeks.
Read more about thewider impact of trade war tariffs on additive manufacturingin this article with insights from 3D printing insiders.
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*Fellow journalists preparing an article on the annual summer death of 3D printing are invited to contact us.
