Data collection
Our reports are built upon first-hand data directly from our industry partners as well as public information collected by the VoxelMatters team. Through VoxelMatters’ directory, the largest AM directory in the world with over 6,000 AM-related companies, we identified 1,364 companies as key stakeholders within the scope of our reports: 351 are hardware manufacturers, 303 are material suppliers, and 710 are service providers.
Through an extensive 200-question survey, data and insights were collected directly from key stakeholders. This first-hand data was compared and combined with supplementary data collected by our team from all publicly available information on revenue and production capabilities for each company included in our reports. In addition to the regular interviews with key AM market stakeholders we do as part of our daily coverage of AM industry news, the team also conducted extensive research interviews with industry operators—as well as independent consultants—to further verify and refine the collected data, estimates and analyses.
In total, the raw data collected for 2022 comprises of over 53,000 data points, drawing an accurate and detailed picture of the current global AM market.
Confidentiality
We value our partners’ trust, which is why we take the confidentiality of the information they share with us very seriously. The raw data collected through surveys is only ever seen by the VoxelMatters research team.
The data collected is combined with additional public data and analyzed in aggregate to form the basis of our overall market estimates and forecasts. In published market reports, we only show segment trends (e.g. the number of parts by technology, volumes sold by material etc) and overall market shares—we do not specify company sales data (e.g. hardware units sold, revenues etc) unless we’re certain that it’s already publicly available information (e.g. from press releases, annual reports etc).
Data segmentation
Carefully segmenting our data is an important part of the work we do. This is what allows us to uncover patterns that may not be immediately apparent in the larger dataset. This leads to a more nuanced and informed analysis of the underlying data, which can ultimately drive better decision-making for our clients.
Below are the major segmentations in our database.
💵 Price segments
Our database considers all companies and all products available today in the additive manufacturing industry. The hardware dataset is organized into six categories based on price points. These categories include Consumer (priced under $1,000), Prosumer (priced $1,000–$5,000), Professional (priced $5,000–$50,000), Entry-level Industrial (priced $50,000–$100,000), Mid-level Industrial (priced $100,000–$300,000), and High-level Industrial (priced over $300,000).
This is important in order to give nuance to our analyses.
For example, the sale volume of Consumer 3D printers is carefully considered in our analyses. This is because the number of low-cost 3D printer units shipped each year, almost entirely in the polymer segment and predominantly from Chinese manufacturers, is orders of magnitude larger than that of professional-level systems. Without price segments, the data would be significantly skewed.
To put this into context, whilst industrial systems (those priced between $100,000 and $300,000+) sales represented 78% of the overall revenues generated in 2022, they accounted for just 1% of all units sold. An easy option is to remove low-cost systems from our analyses, but at 22% of all hardware revenues generated (a figure close to $1 billion), we believe that any accurate analysis of the global additive manufacturing market cannot ignore this price point segment.
🌍 Countries and Regions
Our database covers companies in 98 unique countries across EMEA (56%), NA (26%), APAC (16%) and LATAM (1%).
Forecast model
All the data collected by VoxelMatters each year provides the basis of our 10-year forecasts for all key metrics in AM hardware, materials and services segments. These forecasts are based on our proprietary forecast model, which is refined every year and considers multiple variables translated into coefficients that affect both product demand and sale revenue growth. These are then compared to establish the trend for average product price and estimate each product area’s growth trend.
The underlying premise is that all AM technologies will experience significant growth over the next 10 years. However, some technologies will grow faster and at different intervals than others. The assessment of overall industry growth is based on hardware growth trends which were estimated by converting several influencing factors into growth coefficients affecting yearly sales, average prices and installed base.
The current database has data from 2020, 2021 and 2022 with forecasts through 2033.