The Global Market for Additive Manufacturing Grows Slightly to EUR 7.17 Billion While the Metal 3D Printing Market is Stagnating.

The consulting company AMPOWER has published its annual market report for industrial Additive Manufacturing. The report analyzes global industry developments in 2020 and provides an outlook for the next 5 years. The report is available online and as a PDF at www.additive-manufacturing-report.com. Overall market development for industrial metal and polymer Additive Manufacturing from 2020 to 2025. Forecast from supplier perspective.

AMPOWER reports a pandemic-related stagnating market for metal 3D printing. While equipment sales revenue has decreased, part manufacturing services and material sales have experienced slight growth. Customers were significantly more reluctant to invest in 2020, in particular the otherwise strong aviation market fell short of expectations. However, this drop in sales was largely offset by increased activities in the space segment. Many US based space rocket manufacturers and start-ups are now making intensive use of the technology in engine production. For the next 5 years, annual growth of over 29% is expected in the metal 3D printing sector.

Market development of metal Additive Manufacturing from 2016 to 2020 and supplier forecast 2025.

This year AMPOWER expanded the report for the first time to include the polymer market. At around EUR 5 billion, it is more than twice as large as the metal market but expects significantly lower growth at a good 15%. The market for materials and component manufacturing is significantly larger in polymer than in metal. Overall, the market for Additive Manufacturing of polymers and metals will grow to over EUR 17 billion by 2025.

In the future, new technologies will continue to decisively drive growth. Dr. Maximilian Munsch, co-author and partner at AMPOWER explains: “Powder bed systems still account for the majority of 3D printing processes in the industrial sector for both metal and plastic. For 2025 we expect a decrease in this share and a significant increase in sales of alternative additive technologies such as Binder Jetting (BJT) in metal and Area Wise Vat Polymerization (DLP) in polymer.” Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, partner at AMPOWER, adds: “The costs of the new 3D printing processes are falling continuously and are closing in to those of traditional manufacturing technologies. As a result, Additive Manufacturing is growing significantly more than the manufacturing industry in conventional technologies.”Maturity index of known metal Additive Manufacturing technologies.

The AMPOWER Report 2021 is based on over 300 personal interviews conducted by the company. The surveyed machine suppliers cover over 90% of the system base installed worldwide. In addition to suppliers, particular emphasis is placed on interviewing users to enable a demand-oriented evaluation of future market developments. In addition to the market analysis, the report contains articles from guest authors who discuss the development of the 3D printing market in individual regions.

Source: AMPOWER