3D Hubs predicts 2020 additive manufacturing trends

The leading online manufacturing service, 3D Hubs, has recently released its 3D printing trends report for 2020, giving its insights on the evolution of additive manufacturing, and where the AM market is headed. Looking back at the last decade, it’s easy to see that the 3D printing market has evolved tremendously. The technology has shifted from being a prototyping technology to a production technology, which has brought many underlying changes to the industry. More precisely, 3D Hubs explains that there are 3 times more professionals using 3D printing today than 3 years ago and that the forecasted average annual growth of the 3D printing market for the next 5 years is 24%.

2020 Additive Manufacturing Trends

You might ask what is driving this rapid growth. 3D Hubs identified multiple drivers, including an increased adoption for serial production, strong entrepreneurship driven by applications, and professionals turning to online manufacturing platforms. At 3Dnatives we also looked back at 2019 to identify the key trends that shaped the world of AM. It was impossible to miss the impressive rise of many 3D printing startups. It’s true that investments were flourishing last year, with multiple successful couple million funding rounds. More precisely, 3D Hubs’s report shows that in 2019 alone, more than $1.1. billion were raised by 3D printing startups.

Image via 3D Hubs

Desktop Metal, Markforged, Carbon, Xometry, Relativity, the list goes on and showcases venture capitalists’ trust in the technology and market. Two thirds of 3D printing startups that received funding were 3D printer manufacturers. Looking at the global picture of investment, 3D printer manufacturers acquired 25% of the investment, and the funding was mainly centralized in the US. Naturally, underlying these investments is the growing adoption of 3D printing. An exhaustive study on the market was published by EY in 2019. The report from 3D Hubs expands on EY’s findings, explaining that the adoption tripled in the last 3 years. In fact, out of the 900 companies surveyed by EY, 65% were already using 3D printing and 18% were considering it for their applications in the near future.