We said rabbit, rabbit a few days ago as a new month came upon us, holidays looming–and all the treats they bring forth. Along with November though comes our usual technological treat offering some great new data from trusty 3D Hubs, keeping us up to date on the 3D printing industry, which never seems to fail with at least a few surprises.
This month, making special headlines in the November 3D Hubs Worldwide 3D Printing Trends Report are:
- The Prusa Steel – while still at #1 as it has been for a total of four months so far, has some fire on its heels, as Afinia’s H480 is climbing steadily, from #11 in July to claim the bronze (#3) this month.
- The Ultimaker 2 Extended – it is now the #1 trending printer, after two months in the second spot. 3D Hubs points out that the large Ultimaker is also showing consistently strong growth.
- In terms of 3D printing cities with the most growth – Toronto overtook San Francisco for #9.
Taking a look this month at the Highest Rated Desktop 3D Printers, we see that there has been some pretty good activity in what is one of our favorite categories. While the number one spot has been sealed up tight by the Prusa Steel, the Form 1 has closed in directly behind it, moving up from #5. Bronze is of interest this month too as we pointed out previously, with the Afinia’s H480 making a hefty ascent all the way from #11 since July.
The Rapide Lite is down to 4th, and the Zortrax M200, a staple in the best of’s, is at number five, with over 800 reviews. Also of note is the FlashForge Dreamer, which made its debut at #20.
Industrial printers usually lead a pretty quiet existence on this list. The Objet Eden 260 is still in first and can boast a rating of 4.98, and is followed by competitor titan 3D Systems hardware in the form of the 460 Plus and the 3500 HDMax. 3D Hubs has noted that we have a newcomer to this category as the Objet Connex500 debuted at #9.
Trending Printers are fun to look at as they show us what’s getting a lot of press and catching the attention of savvy users, as well as newcomers. The Ultimaker 2 finally knocked the Duplicator I3 off its throne and took the coveted number one spot as most trending printer. The LulzBot TAZ 5, not surprisingly, jumped all the way up, skipping over three spots, to take #2. As a special note, while the Micro fell out of the top five, it did grow by a whopping 16%, and 3D Hubs points out that after they’ve just sold 10,000 units on Kickstarter, they don’t expect to see them dropping out of the race anytime soon.
Top Print Cities is always a topic of interest as we want to make sure New York City has not been knocked off its pedestal. And, nope. Still there. And it’s still followed by the predictable L.A., London, Milan, and Paris. As we mentioned previously, it’s nice to see the Canadians moving into #9 with Toronto.
Printer Model Distribution has not much, giving us the comfort of knowing that the Ultimaker 2 still leads–and has added almost 100 more printers.
Popular 3D Printers By Region shows us that the FlashForge Creator Pro overtook the Form 1+ at #5 in North America, and in Europe both the Ultimaker 2 and the Zortrax M200 increased market share. The Prusa i3, the FlashForge Creator Pro, and the Zortrax M200 both managed to increase their relative market share in Asia. Other notable news is that the Prusa i3 took the lead ahead of RepRap.
The average order value per category showed an increase for hobby/DIY, household, and prototype 3D prints, while the other categories showed a slight reduction. Art and fashion prints increased, but it seems that the demand for both hobby/DIY and scale model prints slightly decreased in the past 30 days. As for color, black and white prints continue to rise in popularity.
Printer listings is another favorite to check out, as this is a category that just never disappoints in terms of showing growth for 3D Hubs. This month they grew by a respectable 500 printers, going from last month’s 23,000 to November’s more than 23,500. This also includes a new hub–and the first one–in Rwanda.
3D Hubs provides us the data for this report every month, allowing both experienced and prospective users to have a comprehensive view on what’s happening in 3D printing. This data is based on information coming directly from their 3D Hubs community. Let us know your thoughts on these trends in the November 3D Hubs forum thread on 3DPB.com.
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