Metal powder bed fusion additive manufacturing technology hardware sales are expected to pick up this year

“3D Printing Business Information” learned that SmarTech Analysis, a leading provider of industry intelligence and analysis in the metal additive manufacturing industry, predicts that the recent challenge period in the metal powder bed fusion technology market may be coming to an end. In the new report, SmarTech analyzed the current status of the metal powder bed smelting market, which has grown far more than historical normal in the past few quarters, prompting stakeholders to re-evaluate business strategies in this field. SmarTech believes that the short-term challenges seem to be gradually fading and are expected to return to historical growth levels by the end of 2019. It is expected that the sales of metal powder bed fusion hardware in 2019 will achieve approximately US$880 million in revenue.

In the report “Metal Powder Bed Fusion Market 2019”, SmarTech believes that the lack of expertise in specific processes and the understanding of business case development specifically for metal additive manufacturing (and powder bed fusion technology) is still in the market today. The key limiting factor is also a catalyst for the recent potential market slowdown. Although predicting a return to growth based on a series of cyclical factors, SmarTech believes that it would be unwise to fail to recognize the possibility of continued market turmoil. The industry is driving the adoption of technologies that are interconnected, which means that advances in process simulation or the design of additive manufacturing software can accelerate metal additive manufacturing to become more acceptable to a broad audience. New solutions that help to identify specific components as effective candidates for additive manufacturing, such as the solution from the startup 3YOURMIND, may also play a role in improving growth prospects faster by lowering the barriers to current required expertise . At present, titanium, cobalt, aluminum, nickel and precious metals are expected to be processed by powder bed fusion technology, and the processing level is higher than the total average share of molten material consumed by all powder beds during the forecast period. This means that the adoption of powder bed fusion technology will be driven by demand in the market, in which other technologies are not expected to provide the same level of production flexibility and reliable material processing.