Mar.10, 2014
The IT, software and telecom industry research specialist Business Advantage Group announced its 2014 Worldwide CAD Trends Survey with details specific to the 3D Printing trend.
"3D Printing is currently used only by 14% of the CAD users surveyed." said Chris Turner, CEO/Managing Director of Business Advantage. "Current usage by region shows higher usage in the Americas (26%) than in EMEA (12%) and Asia Pacific (11%) as well as higher usage in large companies (28%) than in medium (16%) or in small (6%)."
"Of course this survey is with users of CAD technology so it is only predicting growth related to that audience whereas 3D Printing has other applications (e.g. so called additive manufacturing), so its overall market growth is probably higher than this survey is predicting. Perhaps less encouraging for 3D Printer manufacturers is the very low brand recognition among CAD users - the majority could not name their brand of 3D Printer." explained Turner.
The survey also shows that the main benefits are seen by CAD users as design improvements (63%), savings in design time (54%) and cost (24%), as well as faster response times to market (38%) so confirming that product designers in particular have much to gain from 3D printing. The ability to 3D print low-cost physical prototypes early and locally is speeding the design process by enabling tangible design checking and improvement of form, function and fit as well as testing customer reaction with fast iterations.
Business Advantage's team has undertaken B2B market research and consulting on a worldwide basis and has completed over 1,000 assignments for information and communications technology clients in over 100 countries.
"Strong future growth is anticipated." said Turner. "By the end of this year 21% expect to be using 3D Printers and in the next 5 years 32% expect to be using 3D Printing. This growth is likely in all sectors and regions."
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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So... a 9 percent growth spurt this year, but only 11 percent across the next five years after that...? That makes it sound as though 2014 will be the only good year for 3D printing for the remainder of the decade.
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