Polymer AM Market Opportunities and Trends

About this report As the first material category to be developed for additive manufacturing, polymers were also the first to begin their transition towards serial and mass manufacturing. This transition is now solidly underway. For the first time, this study quantifies exactly how large the current and near-future opportunities are for polymer additive mass production. 3dpbm Research (now VoxelMatters) polymer AM 2020–2030 study, conducted between Q4 2021 and Q3 2022, surveyed an unprecedented number of companies—857 in total (741 unique), of which, 24% were hardware manufacturers, 25% materials manufacturers and 51% service providers—and collected first-hand sales data from major stakeholders operating in this segment on thousands of different hardware, materials and parts products. First-hand data was compared and combined with additional data and information collected by the 3dpbm Research team from all publicly available sources, including day-to-day industry insights coverage via the 3D Printing Media Network portal, an internal asset that no other AM market research company can leverage to this extent. Finally, interviews were conducted with leading AM industry stakeholders and independent consultants to further validate and verify the data, estimates and analyses. In total, the dataset for this market study comprises over 50,000 data points, providing the most accurate snapshot of the current polymer AM global market. First-hand data was compared and combined with additional data and information collected by the 3dpbm Research team from all publicly available sources, for each company included in this study. Finally, interviews were conducted with leading AM industry stakeholders and independent consultants to further validate and verify the data, estimates and analyses. Starting with extensive and unprecedented bottom-up market data, 3dpbm Research applied its proprietary forecast model—which integrates multiple coefficients representing a wide range of influencing factors—to forecast that the core polymer AM market will grow from $3.7 billion in 2020 to over $11 billion by 2025 and $34 billion by 2030. In terms of the core polymer AM market, significant growth is taking place primarily in those areas of development targeting serial and mass customization/production, especially in the fields of planar photopolymerization (continuous DLP technologies) and powder bed fusion (thermal PBF technologies). Other key growth areas identified and quantified include very small (micro photopolymerization) and very large (LFAM) parts. For the first time, this report also provides a vertical (by industrial adoption segment) and geographic (by country and region) breakdown of hardware, materials and service parts sales, with 5- and 10-year forecasts. Users will find current assessments of the polymer AM market, including market positioning (top 10 in all categories and subcategories by units and revenues) of all the key players along with demand and revenue forecasts for hardware, materials and services. Leading and emerging companies addressed in the report include: Stratasys, 3D Systems, EOS, ETEC (Desktop Metal), HP, Carbon, Creality, Formlabs, Materialise, Markforged, Prusa Research, Anycubic, Flashforge, Ultimaker, UnionTech, Mitsubishi, eSun, SABIC, Covestro*, Polymaker, Quickparts, WeNext, Forecast3D, OECHSLER, Protolabs, Shapeways, Fohan, FIT, Prototal and many more. In addition to supporting the market analysis and development efforts of suppliers, the report is targeted toward companies looking to enter the market and capitalize on developing opportunities. OEMs looking to implement AM for polymer part production will benefit from this study by quickly and accurately understanding currently available technologies, materials and services as well as the benefits and challenges of each. Finally, it serves as a guide for investors looking for the next disruptive production technologies. To learn more about the scope of this study and the methodology behind this research please contact us.