Although 3D printing technology has been around for a long time, it is still considered an emerging technology to this day. On the one hand, 3D printing technology is still in its early stages of popularization, and there is ample room for market maturity improvement; On the other hand, the application fields of 3D printing technology are becoming increasingly diverse, with a wider range of applications and many new market opportunities and technological innovation directions. At present, 3D printing technology has covered multiple fields such as healthcare, education, aerospace, and manufacturing.
According to relevant data, in 2019, the global 3D printing industry reached $11.956 billion, with a growth rate of 29.9% and a year-on-year increase of 4.5%. In 2019, the scale of China's 3D printing industry was 15.75 billion yuan, an increase of 31.1% compared to the previous year. It can be seen that the 3D printing industry is achieving accelerated development, and the growth of industry scale is expected to continue to maintain a positive trend.
The country has always attached great importance to the development of the 3D printing industry. In recent years, China has vigorously promoted the research and development of 3D printing technology, promoting the integration and development of 3D printing technology with intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and other fields, and has achieved good results. In some key areas, industries, and enterprises with good basic conditions and urgent needs, the combination of 3D printing industry and intelligent manufacturing industry has collided with different sparks.
At present, the development prospects of the 3D printing industry are increasingly optimistic, and the main market for expired products is still concentrated in the industry and is still in the exploratory stage in the consumer end. Industry insiders believe that the 3D printing industry should establish a firm foothold in key markets such as aerospace and automotive manufacturing, in order to consider truly exerting force on the consumer end and driving further market expansion.
For China, the development of the 3D printing industry still faces many challenges, such as the scope of application needs to be expanded, the application fields are relatively scarce, and the depth of application is relatively weak. Specifically, in the key field of 3D printing materials, most of China's 3D printing materials still rely on imports from abroad, and domestically produced 3D printing materials have relatively high prices and do not have significant price advantages.
The main reason for this is that foreign countries have accumulated a long time in 3D printing technology and have a technological monopoly position, resulting in domestic constraints in basic theoretical research on 3D printing materials, raw material production processes, and material preparation equipment development. In addition, the domestic 3D printing industry started relatively late, resulting in import dependence. In the short term, domestic mass production also faces bottlenecks such as high costs and limited production capacity.
It should be noted that 3D printing materials are a key foundation for the progress of the 3D printing industry and a core element for innovation in 3D printing technology. Currently, 3D printing materials mainly include engineering plastics, photosensitive resins, rubber materials, metal materials, and ceramic materials. Metal materials and ceramic materials have shown increasingly widespread and important application prospects.
The development of metal materials is conducive to promoting breakthroughs in the metal 3D printing industry and assisting in the transformation of high-precision and cutting-edge fields such as aerospace, machinery, and healthcare. At present, 3D printing is developing rapidly in fields such as aerospace, automotive manufacturing, and medical equipment, which is the opportunity period for metal 3D printing. Industry insiders believe that metal 3D printing with high industry concentration.
