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From the 1990s on, the technology evolved from rapid prototyping, focused on formal and functional prototypes, over rapid manufacturing, with a focus on final parts, to AM, where the target is mass production and hybrid manufacturing (Monzón et al. 2019). Each stage was accompanied by a varying degree of frequently overly optimistic extravagant publicity and promotion. For instance, the 3D printing technology developer and manufacturer Formlabs explained that “while AM technologies have been around since the 1980s, the industry went through its most striking hype cycle during the early 2010s, when promoters claimed that the technology would find broad usage in consumer applications and reorder businesses from The Home Depot to UPS. Since the breathless hype subsided a few years ago, professional 3D printing technologies have been rapidly maturing in many concrete ways” (Formlabs 2020a).

With this gradual maturing of the technology, the AM market is also continuously increasing (Petrick and Simpson 2013; Schwab 2017). According to the research firm Wohlers Associates, the global AM market grew from some 1 billion USD in 2009 to 9.8 billion USD in 2018, as shown in Figure 4.3. North America accounts for 40%, Europe for 28%, and Asia Pacific for 27% (UPS 2016; Fan et al. 2020). The largest contributors to the AM revenue are the consumer electronics and the automotive sector with each 20%, followed by the medical device industry at 15% (UPS 2016).

In this figure, products include “AM systems, materials, and aftermarket products, such as software and lasers.” Services include revenues generated from parts produced on AM systems by service providers and system manufacturers, system maintenance contracts, training, seminars, conferences, expositions, advertising, publications, contract research, and consulting services (Fan et al. 2020).

Figure 4.3 Global AM revenues.

Source: Based on Fan et al. (2020). © John Wiley & Sons.