Inkjet Wholesale News aims to provide updates on the latest significant occurrences in the field of printing. Whether it’s the launch of a new technology or volatility of market prices, we’ll be here to give you the lowdown on what happened, when it happened, and what it means!
Desktop 3D Printing Sees Massive Boost as 3D Printer Sales Went Up By 69.7% Last Year
The world is awash with wonder and awe right now and the focus of everybody’s attention is a new technology called Additive Manufacturing. If you don’t recognise the term Additive Manufacturing, then we assure you that it’s only because we’re not using its common name i.e. 3D Printing. Additive Manufacturing and what it is capable of is not something to be scoffed at.
It is touted as the next great technology that will change the landscape of everything human society does. Predictions about 3D printing range from the nerds talking about replicators becoming real to industrialists projecting the replacement of existing machines with industrial grade 3D printers. Even NASA has started focusing on 3D printing as a technology that it can use to build space habitats.
Commercial viability of 3D printing, however, has always been questioned in terms of whether it will ever become affordable enough for the common man to use. Now, it seems that that is exactly what is happening. A report from Wohlers Associates Inc. has revealed that sales of desktop 3D printers (read 3D printers used by the common man) have seen a boost of nearly 70 percent in the period between 2014 and 2015.
That is a massive increase, regardless of what type of lens you view it through. In fact, the figure is huge enough for us to ignore the fact that they were released in a report created by a consulting firm known for its prominent role in the Additive Manufacturing industry.
Even if these figures are based on incredibly optimistic techniques and even if you reduce them by half to take that optimism into account, that’s still an increase of 35 percent. Our perspective, however, says that it doesn’t matter how these figures were collated, they are very much right because the next wave of innovation does truly lie in the field of 3D Printing.
All Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), aftermarket manufacturers, and suppliers (Spoiler for the future: that includes us) are sooner or later going to move into the world of 3D printing. Therefore, we believe that such massive numerical boosts were long overdue in the field of Additive Manufacturing.
You see, for a long time, the 3D printing industry, which is much bigger than just desktop 3D printers, has been growing at a rate between 25 percent and 35 percent. In fact, in the last 27 years, the average growth rate of the 3D printing industry has been to the tune of 26.2 percent.
In the last three years, as per the aforementioned report, the Additive Manufacturing industry grew by 33.8 percent. Last year’s Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the 3D printing industry was 25.9 percent. What this means is that the industry has been growing at a good rate for a long time which is why we feel that it was high time for some boosts.
Our belief is based on simple behavioural parameters seen in social science. For instance, consider the Diffusion of Innovations Theory. Our gut tells us that we’ve just hit the Early Adopters phase with Early Majority and Late Majority phase yet to kick in. We aren’t the only one making such predictions either. OEMs such as HP Inc. have already made a commitment to entering the 3D printing industry in the near future. Consider the next news item.
HP Inc. Claims That Its 3D Printers Will Be Fastest & Cheapest In the Industry
HP Inc., last week, announced that it will finally enter the 3D printing industry by the third quarter of this year. Not only will the newly formed company lead by Dion Weisler enter the market by the third quarter but it will also begin shipping its brand new 3D printers before the end of the year.
HP began talking about 3D printing as far back as 2014 but they had refused to rush into the fledgling market since then. The situation was probably made more complicated by the highly publicised HP split. HP Inc. has, however, tried to sugar-coat the delay by stating that it is looking to leverage the “late mover advantage”. The OEM says that because it waited to pull the trigger on its objective, it now has a “significant market advantage” to rely on.
Now that the OEM has made its intentions clear and revealed a schedule for the same, it has also claimed that its 3D printing machines are going to be the fastest in the Additive Manufacturing industry. In addition, the OEM has gone out on a limb further by claiming that its 3D printing devices will have the cheapest consumables and parts, which is no small claim.
HP Inc.’s 3D printing technology is based on its already functional high resolution 2D thermal inkjet technology. The OEM calls its Additive Manufacturing technology Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printing technology. Estimates from company suggest that MJF 3D printing technology will be up to 10 times faster than other devices in the same segment. MJF 3D printing technology can generate fully colour yields at much lower prices than most other options available in the market currently.
Notably, while it is possible that HP Inc. will have consumer 3D printing devices, it has categorically stated that its primary target will be the commercial 3D printing space. In fact, the Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc., Cathie Lesjak is on record as saying that they’re not “terribly interested in consumer 3D”. The company has also said that it wants to drive the “next industrial revolution” with its commercial Additive Manufacturing devices.
Part of the reason why HP Inc. may not be focusing on the consumer market could be the fact that manufacturers that have done so in the past really haven’t done that well. In fact, interest in Additive Manufacturing peaked significantly in 2014 but has since declined slightly.
Manufacturers such as Stratasys that had targeted consumer markets have since seen the value of their shares drop significantly. Therefore, it can be said that HP Inc. is learning from other companies’ experiences in the 3D printing market.
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