Personal 3D Printing: A Billion Dollar Market?

A new report from SmarTech suggests the personal 3D printing market will soon exceed one billion US dollars. 

The report (available by purchased subscription only) reviews the personal 3D printing market in some detail, covering market segments, materials, vendors and processes. 

Among the information in the report is a forecast that “The market for personal 3D printing products and services will reach $1.05 billion (USD) by 2019”. They further indicate this market will be composed of 65% equipment. 

Those are certainly big numbers, and we don’t doubt they will be achieved given the tremendous interest in 3D printing. However, we can derive a bit more from these numbers. 

If they say 65% of USD$1.05B will be spent on machines, then that means USD$682M represents the forecasted amount consumers will spend on personal 3D printers. Now, if we assumed the unit cost of a personal 3D printer is between USD$1-2,000, we can estimate the number of units sold by 2019, according to this forecast.

With these assumptions, arithmetic tells us they’re forecasting between 350,000 and 700,000 personal 3D printers will be sold annually by 2019. That sounds about right. 

We’re wondering which of the leading vendors will be the big winner. 

Via SmarTech