Oct.30, 2013
Creaform, Inc. developer and manufacturer of portable 3D scanner, has been acquired for $120 million by AMETEK, Inc. a publicly traded, global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electro-mechanical devices with annualized sales of $3.6 billion.
Creaform joins AMETEK as part of its Electronic Instruments Group (EIG), which generated sales of $1.9 billion in 2012.
Based near Quebec City, Canada, Creaform, the privately held company has annual sales of approximately $52 million. Creaform's products include several families of handheld 3D scanners, portable coordinate measuring machines and related accessories that are used in reverse engineering, dimensional inspection, precision manufacturing, non-destructive testing, automated quality control and 3D printing.
"Creaform's innovative, optically-based product line and excellent customer base will expand our metrology sales into attractive segments closely adjacent to those of our existing Taylor Hobson and Solartron Metrology businesses," said Frank S. Hermance, AMETEK Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The common stock of AMETEK is a component of the S&P 500 Index.
Creaform has its headquarters and manufacturing operations in Levis, Quebec with over 300 employees. It operates innovation centers in Levis and Grenoble, France, and has direct sales operations in the United States, France, Germany, China, Japan and India.
Creaform launched in May a series of robot-mounted laser 3D scanners for automated inspection on and off the production line. In the first half of 2013, the company has a growth of 41% of its sales over 2012. Creaform expects the launch of the MetraSCAN-R robot-mounted 3D scanner could increase its sales volume during the second half of the year.
Creaform's products include:
Handyscan 3D scanners: portable metrology-grade scanners
MetraSCAN 3D scanners and HandyPROBE portable CMMs: both feature TRUaccuracy high accuracy measurement in shop floor conditions and actively contributes to reducing operator-related errors.
Go!SCAN 3D white light scanner: released in October of 2012, is Creaform's fastest and most easy-to-use 3D scanner.3D scanning market
According to an analysis from MarketsandMarkets, global sales in the 3D scanning market are expected to grow from an estimated $2.06 billion in 2013 to $4.08 billion by 2018 at an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6%.
The Asia-Pacific region is projected to account for a large share of sales in 2013 at approximately $538 million, and is expected to reach $1.08 billion by 2018 at a CAGR of 15.1%. In addition, Latin America is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23.2%, going from $257.9 million in 2013 to $732.5 million by 2018.
The figure given below the overall market opportunity in terms of absolute dollar value and Year-On-Year (Y-O-Y) growth.
Source: MarketsandMarkets Analysis
Recent industry trends suggest that the demand for 3D scanning technology continues to grow. This includes applications and services such as reverse engineering, rapid prototyping, cultural heritage applications, quality inspection, face and body scanning, and additional machine vision applications.
In addition, 3D scanners will see an increased demand in industrial and academic research projects, according to the report, which predicts that the prices for the 3D scanners will drop but the demand for them will increase, which will aid in the growth of the overall market.
A few of the major players in the market are Faro Technologies, Konica Minolta, Creaform, Surphaser, Autodesk, 3D Systems, 3D Digital Corp. and others.
Posted in 3D Scanning
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