3D Printing Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sophie Winslow (Industrial Technology) | Last updated: September 30, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
The global 3D printing (additive manufacturing) industry generated $24.2 billion in 2025, up 10.9%, according to Wohlers Report 2026. Over the same year, Axis Intelligence Research finds, the combined revenue of the two companies that founded the industry — Stratasys and 3D Systems — fell 7.4%, an 18.3-point Pioneer Growth Gap.
Quick Answer
The additive manufacturing market reached $24.2 billion in 2025 (+10.9%), with printing services taking 48% of revenue and printers just 26% (Wohlers Report 2026). Axis Intelligence Research calculates that the Legacy OEM Share (LOS™) — Stratasys plus 3D Systems as a share of the whole market — fell from 4.62% to 3.88% in one year. Growth moved to services, materials and Asia; it did not move to the listed printer makers.
Key Findings
- Global additive manufacturing revenue reached $24.2 billion in 2025, up 10.9% year over year, according to Wohlers Report 2026, released February 17, 2026.
- Axis Intelligence Research calculates a Pioneer Growth Gap (PGG™) of 18.3 percentage points in 2025: the industry grew 10.9% while Stratasys and 3D Systems’ combined revenue fell 7.4%.
- The Legacy OEM Share (LOS™), Axis Intelligence Research’s measure of Stratasys and 3D Systems’ combined share of global AM revenue, fell from 4.62% in 2024 to 3.88% in 2025.
- AM printing services grew 15.5% in 2025 versus 3.6% for system sales, an 11.9-point services-over-hardware spread calculated by Axis Intelligence Research from Wohlers Report 2026.
- Stratasys sold $2.51 of consumables for every $1 of printers in Q2 2026 ($66.3M vs $26.4M), Axis Intelligence Research calculates from Stratasys’ August 13, 2026 SEC filing.
How Big Is the 3D Printing Market in 2026?
The most recent full-year figure is 2025. Wohlers Associates, now run by ASTM International and in its 31st annual edition, puts global additive manufacturing revenue at $24.2 billion in 2025, up 10.9% year over year. The Wohlers Report 2025 had put 2024 at $21.9 billion, up 9.1%.
No full-year 2026 figure exists yet. Wohlers publishes annually, typically in the first quarter; the 2026 number is expected in early 2027.
3D printing industry revenue, 2024–2025
| Year | Global AM revenue | YoY growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $21.9B | +9.1% | Wohlers Report 2025 (March 31, 2025) |
| 2025 | $24.2B | +10.9% | Wohlers Report 2026 (February 17, 2026) |
One arithmetic note a careful reader will catch: $24.2B divided by $21.9B is 10.5% growth, not 10.9%. The gap implies Wohlers revised its 2024 base between editions — normal practice for a survey-built estimate, but it means anyone chaining the two headline numbers together will get the wrong growth rate. Use the 10.9% as reported, and do not re-derive it.
Where 3D printing revenue comes from: services, printers, materials, software
| Segment | Share of 2025 AM revenue | 2025 growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printing services (parts made for customers) | 48% | +15.5% | Wohlers Report 2026 |
| System sales and servicing | 26% | +3.6% (system sales) | Wohlers Report 2026 |
| Materials (powders, resins, filament) | 20% | n/a | Wohlers Report 2026 |
| Software | 6% | n/a | Wohlers Report 2026 |
Sophie Winslow, Industrial Technology: Read the table from the shop floor, not the trade-show floor. Almost half the money now goes to people who run printers for someone else, and barely a quarter to people who sell the machine. That is what a maturing capital-equipment category looks like: the installed base does the earning, and the buyer’s question has changed from “what can it print” to “what does a good part cost at 85% machine utilization.” The 3.6% system-sales number follows a year in which Wohlers says printer sales and servicing actually contracted 1.5% (2024). Two soft years in a row for hardware is not a blip.
Which Regions Are Growing Fastest in Additive Manufacturing?
Wohlers reports average company revenue growth by region for 2025. Asia-Pacific companies led by a wide margin.
| Region | Average company revenue growth, 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Asia-Pacific | +19.8% | Wohlers Report 2026 |
| Americas | +12.6% | Wohlers Report 2026 |
| Europe, Middle East & Africa | +9.0% | Wohlers Report 2026 |
The Wohlers Report 2025 had already flagged the shift the year before: most 2024 growth came from Asia, and China in particular, while EMEA and the Americas grew slightly or shrank.
How many European companies use 3D printing?
The only harmonized, government-collected adoption figure is Eurostat’s enterprise survey. Its latest published reading is 2020 [older data]: Eurostat has not released a newer comparable 3D printing indicator in dataset isoc_eb_p3d (last data update July 17, 2025). We publish it because nothing more recent exists at the same quality, and because the country spread is still informative.
| Geography | Enterprises (10+ employees) using 3D printing, 2020 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 5.24% (up from 3.92% in 2018) | Eurostat, isoc_eb_p3d |
| Denmark | 9.20% | Eurostat |
| Finland | 7.48% | Eurostat |
| Germany | 7.35% | Eurostat |
| Belgium | 6.23% | Eurostat |
| Sweden | 6.01% | Eurostat |
| Spain | 5.34% | Eurostat |
| Italy | 4.68% | Eurostat |
| France | 4.16% | Eurostat |
| Romania | 1.61% | Eurostat |
Sophie Winslow: One in twenty European firms with ten or more staff ran 3D printing in 2020. That denominator matters every time a vendor quotes “adoption.” Most of these firms own a prototyping machine in an engineering office, not a production cell. A 9% reading in Denmark and 1.6% in Romania says more about the mix of machine-building and medical-device firms in each economy than about appetite for the technology.
Why Are 3D Printer Companies Losing Revenue While the Industry Grows?
This is the question the market-size headline hides, and it is the one Axis Intelligence Research built two metrics to answer.
The Legacy OEM Share (LOS™)
Definition. The Legacy OEM Share (LOS™) is the combined annual revenue of Stratasys and 3D Systems — the two companies that commercialized the first FDM and stereolithography printers — divided by global AM revenue as reported by Wohlers.
Formula: LOS = (Stratasys revenue + 3D Systems revenue) ÷ Wohlers global AM revenue
| Input | 2024 | 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stratasys revenue | $572.458M | $551.102M | Stratasys Form 6-K, March 5, 2026 |
| 3D Systems revenue | $440.121M | $386.902M | 3D Systems Form 8-K, March 9, 2026 |
| Pioneer basket (sum) | $1,012.579M | $938.004M | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Global AM revenue | $21.9B | $24.2B | Wohlers Report 2025 / 2026 |
| LOS™ | 4.62% | 3.88% | Axis Intelligence Research |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the LOS™ fell 0.75 percentage points in one year — a 16.2% relative decline in the pioneers’ share of the market they created. The 2025 reading is the baseline for this series; Axis will recompute it each time Wohlers and the two companies publish full-year figures.
The Pioneer Growth Gap (PGG™)
Definition. The Pioneer Growth Gap (PGG™) is the difference, in percentage points, between Wohlers’ reported industry growth and the revenue growth of the pioneer basket.
Formula: PGG = Wohlers AM revenue growth − pioneer basket revenue growth
- Pioneer basket growth 2025: $938.004M ÷ $1,012.579M − 1 = −7.36%
- PGG 2025: 10.9 − (−7.36) = 18.3 percentage points
A fair objection: 3D Systems sold its Geomagic software unit on April 1, 2025, so part of its decline is portfolio pruning, not lost demand. 3D Systems reports 2024 revenue excluding Geomagic of $418.0M. Rebasing the basket on that figure, pioneer growth is −5.30% and the PGG narrows to 16.2 points. The gap survives the adjustment.
Is the decline over? First-half 2026 data
| Company | H1 2025 revenue | H1 2026 revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stratasys (Q1 + Q2) | $274.1M | $270.3M | Stratasys Q2 2026 Form 6-K, Q1 2026 Form 6-K |
| 3D Systems | $189.378M | $190.117M | 3D Systems Q2 2026 Form 8-K |
| Pioneer basket | $463.478M | $460.417M | Axis Intelligence Research |
Axis Intelligence Research finds the basket’s decline narrowed to −0.66% in the first half of 2026, from −7.36% for full-year 2025. Stratasys guides to $565–575 million for 2026, which would be growth over 2025’s $551.1 million if delivered.
Sophie Winslow: The pioneers did not lose the market to a better printer. They lost it to their own customers’ utilization. When a service bureau runs its existing fleet harder, Wohlers books that as industry growth and the OEM books nothing new except resin and powder. Add low-cost machines — Wohlers has pointed to sub-$10k, often sub-$1k, filament and resin systems whose parts approach industrial quality — and the capital-equipment line gets squeezed from both ends. The H1 2026 stabilization is real, but it came from aerospace, defense and dental, not from a return of the general-purpose prototyping buyer.
How Do 3D Printing Companies Actually Make Money Now?
Consumables outsell printers two to one at Stratasys
Stratasys’ Q2 2026 slides split revenue into lines that show where the cash is.
| Stratasys line, Q2 2026 | Revenue | YoY | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumables | $66.3M (record) | +3.3% | Stratasys Q2 2026 investor slides (SEC) |
| Systems (printers) | $26.4M | −13.7% | Stratasys Q2 2026 investor slides (SEC) |
| Customer support | $29.9M | −1.0% | Stratasys Q2 2026 investor slides (SEC) |
| Total | $137.6M | flat vs $138.1M | Stratasys Q2 2026 Form 6-K |
Axis Intelligence Research calculates a consumables-to-systems ratio of 2.51 for the quarter: printers were 19.2% of revenue, consumables 48.2%. Stratasys also reports that manufacturing applications generated 37.5% of 2025 revenue, up from 25% in 2020 — the clearest company-reported evidence that the prototype-first business model is being replaced.
Medical is now half the business at two listed AM companies
| Company | Healthcare / medical share of revenue | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Materialise | 50.2% (Medical €134.2M of €267.6M; +15.4%) | FY2025 | Materialise FY2025 results, Feb 19, 2026 |
| 3D Systems | 46.4% ($179.6M of $386.9M) | FY2025 | 3D Systems Form 8-K |
| 3D Systems | 50.8% ($48.1M of $94.6M) | Q2 2026 | 3D Systems Form 8-K |
At Materialise the contrast is stark: Medical grew 15.4% in 2025 while the Manufacturing segment, the company’s contract part-printing business, fell 13.2% to €92.5 million. Aerospace and defense is the other growth line: Stratasys reports A&D revenue up 17% in Q2 2026, and 3D Systems reports 16% A&D growth for 2025.
Sophie Winslow: Look at what medical and defense have in common. Both buy qualified parts under a documented process, both pay for traceability, and neither cares much whether the part could be machined cheaper at volume ten thousand, because the volume is one patient or one airframe. That is where the per-part economics of additive already win. General industrial buyers still run the comparison against CNC and injection molding, and at their batch sizes they often still lose.
What Is Happening to 3D Printing Company Valuations?
The clearest price signal in 2026 is a deal. Stratasys agreed to buy Markforged from Nano Dimension for $42.5 million in cash, on a cash-free, debt-free basis, against roughly $70 million of Markforged 2025 revenue, with closing expected by the end of 2026 (Stratasys Q2 2026 investor slides).
Axis Intelligence Research calculates that price at 0.61× revenue. That multiple is company-reported arithmetic on an approximate revenue figure, so treat it as an order of magnitude.
The context: Nano Dimension acquired Markforged in April 2025. Nano Dimension’s full-year 2025 revenue was $102.4 million, of which Markforged contributed $54.3 million from the April 25 acquisition date; Desktop Metal, which Nano Dimension acquired on April 2, 2025, was deconsolidated after July 28, 2025 through a bankruptcy process and sits in discontinued operations (Nano Dimension 8-K, March 31, 2026).
Sophie Winslow: Sixty-one cents on the revenue dollar for a company with an installed base and a continuous-fiber process is not a growth multiple. It is a buyer paying for resellers, customers and consumables pull-through. That is consistent with everything else on this page: in 2026 the asset in 3D printing is the installed fleet, not the next machine.
For the wider picture on funding, failures and exits, see our startup statistics and tech IPO statistics; for additive methods on building sites, see construction technology statistics; and for the chip-equipment demand 3D Systems now targets, see semiconductor statistics.
Methodology
Scope. This page covers the global additive manufacturing industry as measured by Wohlers Associates, and the reported financials of four listed AM companies: Stratasys, 3D Systems, Materialise and Nano Dimension. Private manufacturers (EOS, HP’s AM unit, Formlabs, Bambu Lab, Nikon SLM) do not publish comparable standalone revenue and are not in the pioneer basket.
Collection. Every figure was taken from a document fetched on September 29, 2026: Wohlers/ASTM press releases, SEC Forms 6-K and 8-K, a Materialise regulated results release, and the Eurostat API for dataset isoc_eb_p3d. No figure comes from a market-research aggregator.
Calculated figures.
- Pioneer basket = Stratasys revenue + 3D Systems revenue (both USD, calendar fiscal years).
- LOS™ = pioneer basket ÷ Wohlers global AM revenue.
- PGG™ = Wohlers reported growth − pioneer basket growth. An ex-Geomagic variant uses 3D Systems’ reported 2024 revenue excluding Geomagic ($418.0M).
- H1 basket = Stratasys Q1 + Q2 reported quarterly revenue + 3D Systems reported six-month revenue.
- Consumables-to-systems ratio = Stratasys Q2 consumables ÷ systems revenue.
- Deal multiple = purchase price ÷ company-reported approximate revenue.
All arithmetic was run twice, in floating point and with exact rational fractions, and matched.
Why these two companies. Stratasys and 3D Systems both report in U.S. dollars on calendar years and both invented the core polymer processes, which makes them the cleanest long-run proxy for the “printer-maker” business. Materialise reports in euros and is software- and medical-weighted; Nano Dimension’s 2025 revenue is distorted by two acquisitions. Both are reported separately rather than blended.
Scope notes. Wohlers’ global total is a survey-built estimate covering hundreds of companies, while the basket figures are audited or filed revenue; LOS™ therefore compares an estimate to a hard number. Wohlers’ 2024 base appears to have been revised between editions, and LOS™ 2024 uses the base published at the time. Eurostat’s latest comparable reading is 2020.
About This Dataset
The dataset 3d-printing-statistics.csv contains 89 rows: Wohlers global and segment figures for 2024–2025, company revenue and segment lines for Stratasys, 3D Systems, Materialise and Nano Dimension through Q2 2026, Eurostat enterprise adoption by country for 2018 and 2020, and every LOS™, PGG™ and ratio calculated by Axis Intelligence Research. Each row carries its source organization, document, URL, retrieval date and, for calculated rows, the formula.
- License: CC BY 4.0. Reuse freely with attribution.
- Also published on: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub under the same file name.
How to Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Winslow, S. (2026, September 30). 3D printing statistics 2026: A $24.2B industry whose pioneers are shrinking. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/3d-printing-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sophie Winslow. “3D Printing Statistics 2026: A $24.2B Industry Whose Pioneers Are Shrinking.” Axis Intelligence, 30 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/3d-printing-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sophie Winslow. “3D Printing Statistics 2026: A $24.2B Industry Whose Pioneers Are Shrinking.” Axis Intelligence, September 30, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/3d-printing-statistics/.
FAQ: 3D Printing Market Questions Buyers, Investors and Engineers Ask
Is the 3D printing industry growing or shrinking in 2026?
Both, depending on who you measure. Industry revenue grew 10.9% to $24.2 billion in 2025 (Wohlers Report 2026), but Stratasys and 3D Systems’ combined revenue fell 7.4%. Axis Intelligence Research calls that 18.3-point difference the Pioneer Growth Gap (PGG™).
What share of the 3D printing market do Stratasys and 3D Systems hold?
About 3.9%. Axis Intelligence Research’s Legacy OEM Share (LOS™) puts their combined revenue at 3.88% of global additive manufacturing revenue in 2025, down from 4.62% in 2024.
Is it better to buy a 3D printer or use a printing service?
The market is voting for services. Printing services earned 48% of AM revenue in 2025 and grew 15.5%, versus 3.6% for system sales (Wohlers Report 2026). For low or irregular part volumes, outsourcing avoids paying for idle machine time. For desktop buyers, our 3D printer buying guide covers individual models.
Why do 3D printer makers depend on materials sales?
Materials are recurring revenue from the installed base. Stratasys sold $66.3 million of consumables and $26.4 million of printers in Q2 2026 — a 2.51 ratio calculated by Axis Intelligence Research — and its consumables line hit a record.
Which industries are driving industrial 3D printing demand?
Medical and aerospace-defense. Medical is 50.2% of Materialise’s 2025 revenue and 50.8% of 3D Systems’ Q2 2026 revenue; Stratasys reported aerospace and defense revenue up 17% in Q2 2026.
Where is additive manufacturing growing fastest?
Asia-Pacific. Wohlers reports average company revenue growth of 19.8% there in 2025, against 12.6% in the Americas and 9.0% in EMEA.
How many businesses actually use 3D printing?
In the EU, 5.24% of enterprises with 10 or more employees used 3D printing in 2020, the latest comparable Eurostat reading. Denmark led at 9.20%.
How much did Stratasys pay for Markforged?
$42.5 million in cash, on a cash-free, debt-free basis, for a business with roughly $70 million of 2025 revenue — about 0.61× revenue by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation. Closing is expected by the end of 2026.