Martin Stevens, CEO of A1 Technologies (makers of the Rap-Man we covered recently) dropped us a line to follow up on our post regarding the growth of the 3D printing market. Stevens says:
… we have been amazed on the response from industrial organisations. We have taken orders from large corporations, which are interested in the technology. We have shipped to small companies that have never used 3D printing before because it was too expensive. We are also supplying companies that use bureau services but have no in-house facility, and want to use the RapMan for early stage prototyping.
This is a very intriguing development, because it shows where the growth is:
- In low costs 3D tech
- From companies who have not used 3D tech before
This is great news for the industry in general, because it promotes new entries to the printer space with innovative and low-cost products, and generally widens the market. When the economy recovers, you’ll have many more companies familiar with the technology who will no doubt buy better printers developed by the smaller manufacturers with their growing revenue, or move up to the large-scale full-on 3D printers.
