Stratasys sees robust growth in 3D printing market

A day after Hewlett-Packard Co revealed plans for ground-breaking 3D printing technology, 3D-printing manufacturer Stratasys Ltd said it was expecting more competition and pointed to its market position, Reuters reported. According to commentators the market is expected to explode by the end of the decade.

Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday that it had developed 3D-printing technology capable of printing 10 times faster at considerably less expense than current products, and that it planned to launch the technology around 2016.

Shares of Stratasys retreated 3 per cent after the announcement, while those of rival 3D Systems Corp fell around 5 per cent.

At a media event in New York yesterday, Stratasys executives said the global 3D-printing market was expected to expand from $3 billion last year to $21 billion by 2020, industry research showed.

in an interview on the sidelines of the event Stratsys chief executive officer David Reis said even if some very good competitor were to enter the market, he thought the growth of the market would allow Stratasys and other companies to grow and it was not going to be limited to one or two companies.

Meanwhile, in a departure for the company, HP also announced it would introduce the 3D printing technology it had been developing for years, Reuters said in a separate report.

The company said the technique, which can print 10 times faster and much cheaper than current products, would be shared with select manufacturing and technology partners to gather feedback before a launch scheduled tentatively for 2016.

According to Eric Monsef, who heads the project for HP, though the initial production run would be modest, it could be scaled up if needed. The key was to attract developers for a new Sprout marketplace or app store, for specifically designed software that could take advantage of 3D capabilities.

It would come with apps from DreamWorks Animation, Skype and Evernote, among others.

Monsef said in an interview that it was about getting people excited again. He added, the hope was that Sprout would entice more developers as time went by, who would in turn devise novel ways to make use of the technology.

The company calls the technique "multi jet fusion" as uses a series of printing jets spraying multiple chemical agents simultaneously.