MakerBot Europe is Announced – Bringing More High Quality 3D Printers and Supplies Across the Pond

When most people in the United States talk about purchasing a 3D Printer, the one that they most likely are referring to is manufactured by MakerBot. The company, a subsidiary of Stratasys, with day-to-day operations run by CEO and Founder Bre Pettis, is the leader for consumer level 3D printer sales in the United States, with their latest 5th Generation MakerBot Replicator models.

Alexander Hafner

Up until now, if you were a person living in Europe, who wished to purchase a MakerBot 3D printer, you would have had to go through one of their European partners. Yesterday, MakerBot announced that they are expanding their operations, and launching “MakerBot Europe“, in efforts to expand their brand to most of the countries in Europe. In doing so, they will be acquiring partial assets of their Germany-based partner, HAFNER’S BÜRO. They have been a MakerBot reseller in Germany for many years, and have been run by Alexander Hafner, since 1988. Hafner will take over as General Manager of the new MakerBot Europe division.

“We are so excited to officially launch MakerBot Europe and expand MakerBot’s global reach with the creation of MakerBot Europe,” said Jenny Lawton, president of MakerBot. “Alexander Hafner and HAFNER’S BÜRO are longtime MakerBot partners and have extensive knowledge of our products, 3D printing and design solutions, and the European market. We are thrilled that they will play a larger role in the MakerBot family and will represent the company with our European distributors and resellers.”

While MakerBot has already been selling a solid amount of 3D printers throughout Europe via their reseller partners, this move will certainly improve their presence on the continent.

““MakerBot Europe is committing itself to Europe as one of MakerBot’s most important markets for 3D printing. We are very proud to be MakerBot’s partner of choice for this exciting step. I think it is a unique opportunity in both of our companies’ histories. We are excited to be able to take our 3D printing experience and years of working with MakerBot to expand that knowledge throughout Europe,” said Alexander Hafner, general manager of the new MakerBot Europe office. “We are firm believers in MakerBot desktop 3D printing and scanning technology and look forward to working with the extensive network of MakerBot resellers in Europe.”

As for the other MakerBot resellers in Europe, they will continue to operate their businesses as normal, and then begin to be assimilated into MakerBot Europe’s sales and marketing organization within the next six months or so. MakerBot Europe will include Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, as well as other European countries.

It should be interesting to see how other 3D printer manufacturers in Europe react to this move by MakerBot, a company which seems to have a goal of becoming the world-wide leader of consumer level 3D printer sales. What do you think? Is this a good move for MakerBot? Discuss in the MakerBot Europe forum thread on 3DPB.com.