Additive manufacturing with metal powders market to top $11B by 2024

Industry analyst firm SmarTech Analysis has just issued its latest report, Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders 2019. Scott Dunham, the author of the report and VP of Research at SmarTech Analysis, see the metal additive manufacturing industry shaking off a challenging 2018, a year that still saw the metal AM market achieve revenues (machines, materials and services) of nearly $3.3 billion (USD). The firm sees 2019 as a strong bounce-back year and projects that the metal additive manufacturing market will see revenues approaching revenue of $11 billion in 2024. An excerpt and Excel table are available upon request.
This latest edition of SmarTech Publishing’s industry-leading market report on metal additive manufacturing technology and materials identifies how the metal AM market will develop in three distinctive technology areas to unlock pent up worldwide demand for digital manufacturing in markets both familiar and new to the world of 3D printing and additive manufacturing.
For the first time ever, purchasers of this resource now receive a complete market tracking and forecasting database of detailed metrics covering the value chain of additive manufacturing ranging from hardware and its subsegments, materials, metal AM printing services, and more. The database is enhanced by a 100-page study of the latest and most influential market trends and drivers which are ultimately responsible for shaping the associated forecasts.
The report provides resources that track new production applications for metal AM during the last year and details the top companies in various areas of the market while highlighting SmarTech’s own long-term vision for the future of metal additive technologies in a focused, easy to navigate manner for industry stakeholders.
Prominent companies addressed in the report include AP&C, Carpenter, Coherent, Desktop Metal, EOS, ExOne, GE Additive, Heraeus, Hoganas, HP, Markforged, Oerlikon, Praxair Surface Technologies, Sandvik, SLM Solutions, Stratasys, Tekna, Trumpf and Velo3D.

A state of metal
The current phase of major evolution has caused some temporary hesitancy in the market, as users continue to work out internal strategies to address the huge opportunities associated with metal additive manufacturing. The impending onslaught of new bound metal printing processes from Desktop Metal, HP, Stratasys, GE Additive, and others, are once again giving users pause in determining which AM avenues to invest in for the future. Meanwhile, the fast pace of advancement and technological innovation in laser powder bed fusion technology has put these technologies in overall a much better position for industrialized manufacturing but left users in a difficult position by needing to reevaluate and retest these processes and their capabilities in light of the changes.
Overall, powder bed fusion technologies still play the largest role in metal additive manufacturing, comprising 80 percent of all metal AM system installations worldwide. However, suppliers of these incumbent processes felt the market dynamic shifts during 2018 most negatively, especially during the fourth quarter –typically the industry’s largest and most profitable. While powder bed fusion hardware revenues declined slightly in 2018, unit sales of all metal additive processes increased significantly, and revenues in bound-metal printing and directed energy deposition systems showed strong growth.
Long term, it appears that metal AM market growth is only limited by the ability of users worldwide to understand its capabilities at a very detailed and expert level. It is here that SmarTech believes that there are “three S’s” which will help drive user capability forward over the long term; software, services, and standardization