A new forecast produced by IDC suggests that worldwide spending on 3D printing will be $13.8 billion this year. This spending factors in hardware, materials, software, and services required for 3D printing, the new figure represents an increase of 21.2% from 2018. IDC expects the figure to grow to $22.7 billion by 2022.
According to IDC, the biggest markets for 3D printing will be discrete manufacturing (53.8%), healthcare providers (13.1%), education (8.6%), professional services (6.5%), consumer (4.7%), and others (13.3%). The U.S. is expected to spend nearly $5 billion, Western Europe is expected to spend $3.6 billion, while China is expected to spend nearly $2 billion.
Marianne D’Aquila, research manager, Customer Insights and Analysis at IDC said:
“As anticipated, we are seeing a wider adoption of 3D printing use cases worldwide. 3D printing has moved beyond its early days of prototyping in manufacturing and is proliferating to other use cases and industries. The benefits of customized, cost-effective printing are being realized in a more diverse manner, as exemplified by growing spend in aftermarket parts in manufacturing, surgical models in healthcare, and architectural designs in professional services, to name a few.”
IDC said that the printers themselves, and the materials, will make up two thirds of the worldwide spending, totalling $5.3 billion and $4.2 billion respectively in 2019. Services such as on-demand parts services and systems integration services will reach $3.8 billion this year.