It began as a long term, seemingly unattainable dream, but, after almost two years of exponential and accelerating growth, 3D Hubs is starting to look more and more like the very solid base for the distributed manufacturing world that is dawning upon us. Since the beginning of the year, the leading 3D printer network has gone from 10.000 to 12.000 registered 3D printers, which means a 20% growth in less than two months (continuing at this rate for all of 2015 would result in over 120% growth YoY).
Even more so than the hard numbers, 3D Hubs represents the 3D printed dream of fully distributed manufacturing. It will take more time for this dream to realize, but the course has been set. Most importantly, many users on the network are reporting a growing customer base. While making money is not necessarily the main objective for many of those who get involved in desktop 3D printing (having fun is also a big part of it), more requests reflect the greater awareness around 3D printing, a trend that is also growing fast.
In its March 2015 monthly trend report, 3D Hubs’ Head of Community, Philemon Schoffer, pointed out that growth for trending 3D printers skyrocketed after the holiday season. “Every printer in the top 10 grew by at least 25%,” Philemon said, “and the top 3 by more than 50%. That is MoM growth and,” Philemon concluded, “we’re still picking up the pace, a lot.”
North America and Europe are, of course, the areas of the world where 3D printing and 3D Hubs are most present. While New York and Los Angeles lead the way in the US, in Europe, the “axis” that connects the UK, Holland, and Italy is the most thickly lit up in 3D Hubs’ global map, with Milan, London, and Amsterdam (followed by Paris) as the cities with the most registered 3D printers. Another piece of great news is that three more countries entered the network and they are some of the most socially and economically troubled in the world: Afghanistan, Albania, and Haiti. Hopefully this is a glimmer of hope for those countries.
The trending printers list sees the new entry LulzBot TAZ 4 (a North American favorite) registering a 58.3% MoM growth, followed by another new entry, the Flashforge Dreamer (very common in the US and in Asia). Another US favorite, the Printrbot Simple Metal, is in third place with 52.2% MoM growth. The Form 1+ is back in the top 10 in 5th place, while another new entry is the Cube Pro by 3D Systems.
As far as ratings go, the Form1+ is the top rated overall, while the very sturdy M200 from the Polish Zortrax team is the top rated filament-based 3D printer. Incidentally, these are also the two 3D printers that have been reviewed the most. On the industrial side, the list is dominated by Stratasys and 3D Systems machines, which, curiously enough, are split exactly in half in terms of ratings. The five Stratasys 3D printers include both FDM-based Dimension 3D printers and some of the smaller PolyJet-based Objet 3D printers. 3D Systems is mostly represented by the Zcorp binder jetting systems and by the Multimaterial Jet modelling (MJM) Projet 3500 HDMax system.
Most of the other indicators, including overall printer model distribution, popular printers by region, popular print category, and color distribution remain rather stable. The MakerBot Replicator 2 and 2X are still the most popular models in North America and Asia, with the Ultimaker 2 holding onto the top spot in Europe. The most popular categories remain prototypes and scale models (which can be considered another form of prototyping), with all final-use applications (Art/fashion, gadgets, hobby/DIY, household items) still trailing far behind. When these categories begin to grow, we are likely going to see 3D Hubs and 3D printing take off even faster. Until then, we will continue to rely on the network’s regular trend reports to assess the state of the distributed manufacturing industry.
