The most recent financial results from Stratasys indicate a potentially worrying trend, specifically negative growth in product net sales over the past 5 years. I asked Ilan Levin, Stratasys CEO, for additional insight into yesterday’s figures.
Ilan Levin, CEO of Stratasys, “We are witnessing a strong appetite in the market for AM technologies, specifically for exploratory efforts related to new technologies brought to market. We observe this dynamic when introducing new products, and have benefited in the past from the high growth that results from this kind of “try and buy “behavior as customers develop use cases. As our business has matured, we are observing more and more of our customers entering into a phase of testing, certification, and validation as they pursue specific, high value production applications.”
Repeat orders from highly educated customers
As noted in Levin’s response, and supported by data from the wider 3D industry, the market is growing. However, it may appear that although Stratasys conducted substantial amounts of customer education and developing the wider industry, the company is not reaping the benefits – i.e. potential customers are maturing but venturing out to use non-Stratasys systems.
Ilan Levin, CEO of Stratasys, “We are specifically encouraged by the trends we see in repeat customer behavior, as existing customers increasingly make up a larger share of revenue as they purchase more advanced systems, and in some cases, multiple systems. We believe that these repeat orders represent highly educated customers increasing capacity as they accelerate their validation efforts and move into higher usage, production applications.
We believe that the personal printing market, addressing both individuals and workgroup solutions for designers and engineers, is still an underpenetrated market and one in which we offer highly competitive and relevant products through both our MakerBot and Stratasys brands, including our F123 series.”
The F123 series has certainly been a popular addition to the Stratasys range. In conversations with resellers and channel partners, this line in particular appears to meet the need Stratasys intended.
Higher end additive manufacturing systems from Stratasys have also been well received by the 3D printing industry. In surveying our readers for the annual 3D Printing Industry Awards, the Fortus 900mc Aircraft Interiors Certification Solution received a substantial number of nominations is currently shortlisted in the Aerospace or Automotive application category for a 2018 award.
Vote now for the leading additive manufacturing systems in the 2018 3D Printing Industry Awards. Voting closes on May 10th.
For more of the latest additive manufacturing insights subscribe to our daily 3D Printing Industry newsletter, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Find talent for a project, or advance your career in 3D printing. The 3D Printing Jobs board is live – registration is free for employers and job seekers.
Featured image shows the F900 Production 3D Printer. Photo via Stratasys.
