National policy
Industry Standards
There are five relevant current standards in China, and three will be released soon. Twelve are in research, covering many links from upstream raw materials to downstream applications.
In 2018, the domestic 3D printing industry reached 2.36 billion US dollars, with a compound growth rate of 49.1% in the past five years. It is estimated that the total revenue of China’s 3D printing industry will exceed 10 billion US dollars in 2023.
Raw Material Market
In 2017, the market scale of raw materials for 3D printing in China accounted for 27.6% of the total market scale of 3D printing industry. The richness of raw materials for 3D printing determined that the application scope of 3D printing technology in China reached 2.992 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of about 40% over the same period of last year. It is expected that the market will reach 2.929 billion yuan by 2024. In 2017, aluminum alloy, stainless steel and titanium alloy accounted for 10.1%, 9.1% and 20.2% respectively, accounting for 39.4%. The remaining 60.6% were non-metallic materials, including nylon, PLA, ABS plastics and resins.
3D printing equipment
The output value of equipment sector accounts for 40% – 50% of the output value of the whole industrial chain. It is estimated that the domestic market of 3D printing equipment will be 750 million US dollars in 2017 and 1.06 billion US dollars in 2018. Lux Research predicts that by 2025, the market of 3D printing services will account for 58% of the total market, while materials and equipment will account for 17% and 25% respectively.
Industrial-grade 3D printing equipment occupies the mainstream position
44.1% of domestic enterprises purchase and use 3D printing equipment with unit price of more than 100,000 US dollars, only 16.9% of them purchase and use 3D printing equipment with unit price of less than 2,500 US dollars; 39.8% of domestic enterprises own UV-curable 3D printing equipment, accounting for the highest proportion of all types; SLM-3D printing equipment accounted for 19.9%, followed by FDM; 19.3%.
In the domestic stock market of 3D printing equipment, 16.4% of the enterprises owned the 3D printing equipment of Liantai Technology, 14.8% owned STRATSYS equipment and 13.1% owned EOS equipment. They are the top three brands of 3D printing equipment in China.