The top 10 metal AM service providers by revenue in 2022
From VoxelMatters Research's upcoming study on the global metal AM sector
The top 10 list for metal AM service providers is based on the latest data collected by VoxelMatters Research for the new Metal AM Market report that will be released next month. The list again sees BEAMIT (which includes the UK’s 3T) as the largest metal AM service provider by revenue in 2022 even as the company went through a drastic reorganization. BEAMIT can also count on ongoing support from key investor Sandvik.
The rest of the list of the top 10 metal AM service providers is populated by a wide variety of companies. Let’s look at them more closely.
Falcontech, in second place, is a large Chinese metal AM service provider that has partnered up with Farsoon to offer services via a factory that will eventually have over 200 machines in operation. According to our data, Falcontech is producing more parts than any Western company, however, its revenues are a bit lower due to a more competitive part pricing structure.
The next companies in top 10 metal AM service providers list, US-based Sintavia and Germany-based Toolcraft, may be producing fewer parts on fewer machines, but these are generally very high-value parts. Sintavia likes to consider itself a tier 1/tier 2 aerospace parts supplier however the company has extensive expertise in AM, which necessarily makes it also a leading AM service provider. Toolcraft, which recently launched the AMbitious platform to offer training, software and consulting in the field of additive manufacturing/AM is the largest metal AM service company in Germany by AM-related revenues
Next up, Stratasys is present with parts produced mostly through the North American members of the Stratasys Direct Manufacturing network, which was built around the acquisitions of Solid Concepts and Harvest Technologies in 2014. Following is Quickparts, which carries on 3D Systems On Demand Parts’ legacy, with a global network of service providers offering both polymer and metal AM capabilities. Quickparts was the original name of 3D Systems’ AM services (before changing to 3D Systems On Demand). The company was established as an independent entity in 2021, after the acquisition by Trilantic.
VoxelMatters’ top 10 metal AM service providers continue with Bright Laser Technology, another Chinese company (public), is rapidly rising to become one of the largest service providers in the world leveraging its own internally developed systems, including the state-of-the-art BLT-S800 with a 20-laser configuration. BLT’s AM service centers house hundreds of systems developed by BLT itself.
The remaining companies are based in both Europe and the US. Proto Labs opened its large European state-of-the-art facility in Putzbrunn, near Munich, which offers an additional 6,000 square meters of space, providing the capacity needed to further support design engineers across the entire continent and including a center of excellence for AM. Oerlikon is a Swiss company with large service centers in Germany (through the acquisition of Citim and many subsequent investments in AM) and is also present with facilities in the US, targeting medical applications in particular.
The 10th company on the top 10 metal AM service providers has only recently appeared on our radar since it has largely failed to adequately communicate its AM activity to the media. We are talking about the Austrian company Pankl, a very large AM service provider catering to the automotive and aerospace segments.
The future of metal AM services
The metal AM production services segment is undergoing a dramatic transition as it evolves from small and medium enterprises to specialized AM factories. This transition is complicated by the fact that no one has yet identified the ideal business model, and business models that seemed solid have proven to be otherwise. For example, just a few years ago, some of the largest metal AM service providers were market-leading hardware companies such as 3D Systems, Stratasys, Digital Metal, and ExOne. Since then, 3D Systems sold off its AM service business (which took the old name, Quickparts, back as a new company), Stratasys did away with its metal AM services (which it had established in 2014 when it acquired Solid Concepts and Harvest Technologies, two of the largest service providers active then), Digital Metal was sold to Markforged and ExOne was sold to Desktop Metal.
The metal AM market has been almost completely revolutionized and will continue to undergo dramatic changes as new companies emerge around ultra-high productivity technologies. These include very well-funded startups like Vulcan Forms, Seurat, and Freeform, among several others, especially in the metal wire DED segment. At the same time, many continue to hold high hopes for metal binder jetting, especially as the first dedicated metal AM service providers using MBJ technology – such as FreeFORM, which runs 25 machines – begin to emerge.
The traditional metal AM service market leaders, companies like Toolcraft, BEAMIT, Siemens Energy, GKN Additive, Proto Labs, Oerlikon, Jabil and, more recently, Materialise, along with large-scale global AM networks like Xometry and newcomers like MakerVerse, are the ones that are currently generating the most business and will continue to do so over the next ten years. However, even they have gone through some challenging times and/or major changes and structural reorganizations.
Another trend that seemed evident just a couple of years ago—that of large metal AM materials providers starting to offer metal AM services as a means to capitalize on the added value that comes from finished AM parts—has undergone what can be thought of as natural selection. Some, like Oerlikon and GKN, have grown and even thrived (even if they hardly reached profitability), while others, like Carpenter (which has acquired metal powder market leader LPW) and Hoganas have disinvested, sold, or scaled down their AM service operations.
VoxelMatters Research surveyed and analyzed the data from hundreds of metal AM service providers around the world, looking at key metrics such as the number of machines installed, yearly material consumption, number of parts produced, cost per part, and yearly revenues. This analysis provides the basis for a closer look at the different types of metal AM service providers and the opportunities they represent for the AM industry. The 3D printed part-specific information collected also provides unique insights into understanding the overall metal AM production sector, beyond its core segments (hardware, materials, and services) and into the key AM adoption verticals.
