3D Platform announced they’ve shipped a total of 500 large format 3D printers – so far.
This is a significant achievement for a manufacturer of large 3D printers, as such machines are not sold as easily as desktop 3D printers. 3D Platform’s sales over their three years of existence provide significant evident of their revenues. If their average system price is around USD$25,000, then they’ve likely sold at the very least USD$12.5M worth of gear in total. And it’s probably higher than that when you include service, materials, more expensive models and other sales.
For perspective, we’re told that Prusa, one of the most popular desktop systems, is now selling more than 6,000 desktop units per month. But Prusa’s equipment sells for only USD$700 per unit, meaning they’ll probably have revenue of around USD$50M per year.
This places 3D Platform in a good position financially, and that revenue has allowed 3D Platform to diversify their portfolio of equipment. Jonathan Schroeder, President of 3D Platform, said:
We had part of our customer base saying that they needed large format, but at a lower price point; and a second segment asking for more performance.
And so today we see a series of different options from the company, including some rather interesting moves toward the highly profitable manufacturing market to come in the future.
The other conclusion from this announcement is that there clearly is a market for large-format 3D printers available at lower price points. Before 3D Platform and its competitors emerged, the only large format options for thermoplastic 3D printing were extremely expensive. So expensive they were that very few companies used them.
The introduction of inexpensive large format 3D printers, enabled by the expiration of certain patents, has opened up an entirely new category of 3D printing, making the technology available to a huge number of companies that otherwise would never have been able to take advantage of 3D printing technologies.
Our congratulations go to 3D Platform!
Via 3D Platform
