At 800 yuan per unit, with an annual revenue of 5.5 billion yuan, 3D printers are going crazy.
Cover source | Doubao AI
When young people on social platforms start to be keen on showing various trendy IP products and small desktop items they've obtained through 3D printers, a new business is booming.
Capital is pouring in intensively. After Hillhouse Capital and Meituan, DJI has also started to bet on 3D printer companies. Most of the leading 3D printer companies were born in Shenzhen, and one of the leading players is Topaz Technology.
According to 36Kr, the valuation of Topaz Technology in the capital market has long exceeded 30 billion yuan. With a shipment volume of over 1.2 million units last year, it holds a 29% global market share. Creality, which has submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is also vying for the title of "the first consumer-grade 3D printing stock".
The 3D printing market is highly concentrated. The top five companies almost occupy 90% of the market share, and behind these leading companies, there are now full of investment institutions.
During the just-passed "Double 11", after various subsidies, many users were able to buy a 3D printer for about 800 yuan. As the price and usage threshold have dropped significantly, the 3D printing market, which combines emotional value and creativity, is booming. With the intensive influx of capital and giant enterprises, a new round of competition has officially begun.
One for 800 yuan, annual revenue of 5.5 billion, 3D printing is booming
3D printers are becoming a new fashion item on social platforms.
One type of users are trendy toy enthusiasts. They not only use 3D printing to create popular IP products like Labubu and Star People, but also items like Hello Kitty plates and Pikachu tissue boxes. The other type are parents showing off toys like dinosaurs and go-karts printed by teenagers of different ages.
This is an epitome of 3D printers moving from the niche group of makers to more ordinary users. The main driving factors behind this include a significant drop in the price of equipment and the usage threshold, and since 2024, the popularization of generative AI modeling tools has greatly improved the challenge of "too high a modeling threshold" for consumer-grade 3D printers.
Caption: 3D printing products shared by a Xiaohongshu blogger.
The person in charge of the CUBEUNi studio, which mainly engages in 3D printing business, told Tech Planet that now the prices of 3D printer equipment and consumables have both been halved. Apart from factors like "national subsidies", one can basically buy a 3D printer for about 1,000 yuan. The entry-level consumables for 3D printing now cost about 40 yuan per kilogram. According to what he learned at this year's 3D printing exhibition, the prices of some consumables have even dropped by about 70%.
Compared with the fact that the service life of consumer-grade 3D printer equipment is usually about 5 years, as these devices reach the general public, the consumption of consumables is increasing sharply, which is another "rich mine" for the revenue of 3D printing companies.
According to the person in charge of the CUBEUNi studio, most users will eventually switch from cheap third - party consumables to official consumables for "print quality stability and fast system compatibility". Of course, there are also many featured third - party consumable suppliers in the market now, such as carbon fiber, aesthetic consumables, and environmentally friendly consumables, which are also good choices.
Senior users' expenditures on machine maintenance and consumables are also much higher than the cost of the equipment itself.
A consumer-grade 3D printer user told Tech Planet that before achieving the freedom of making figurines, stress-relieving toys, and daily necessities, you first have to become a repairman to solve various trivial problems such as nozzle clogging during the printing process, and the ultimate "noodle" result - in the 3D printing circle, this refers to the situation where due to various problems during the printing process, the printed object's shape does not meet the expectations and looks as distorted as fried noodles.
A user who is keen on printing various photography accessories on a daily basis told Tech Planet that he has spent tens of thousands of yuan on consumables in the past two years. And a user who mainly prints self-designed connectors, gifts, and storage boxes said that the value of the printer accessories he bought has exceeded three times the price of the machine.
In the past, 3D printers were mainly sold to two types of users. One type is the "farmers", referring to B - end users who use 3D printers for mass production to make money. The dragon and snake animal model toys that frequently appear in various markets and night markets in the past two years are mass - produced by thousands of 3D printers in some factories in Yiwu, and the unit cost is only about 2 yuan. The other type includes university laboratories and STEAM education institutions. For example, the A1mini model of Topaz Technology with the lowest price is mainly targeted at family users.
The companies behind consumer-grade 3D printers have made a fortune. According to Shenzhen Commercial Daily, in 2024, Topaz's global revenue exceeded 5.5 billion yuan, with a net profit margin of 30%. In the first quarter of this year, Topaz's revenue has reached 2 billion yuan.
The "hunt" of giants and the entry of capital, the competition intensifies
The consumer-grade 3D printing market has become smoky again recently because of DJI's entry.
The reason is that Tao Ye, the founder of Topaz Technology, wrote in a WeChat Moments post on November 15 that his "former employer" DJI has invested in a 3D printing company, and "there are special clauses related to Topaz in the agreement".
The core team of Topaz comes from DJI. Tao Ye, the founder of Topaz, once served as the head of DJI's consumer-grade drone division, and many of Topaz's R & D personnel and product managers also come from DJI. In the venture capital circle and among consumers, Topaz has always attracted more attention because of its DJI genes. Now that DJI has directly invested in a 3D printing company, the market competition has become more delicate.
The enthusiasm in the primary market for the 3D printing market has also increased significantly. Meituan and Hillhouse have recently collectively bet on the 3D printing company QuickCreate Technology, and Creality has received investments from well - known institutions such as Tencent and Shenzhen Capital Group. According to Jiemian News, the 3D printing company invested by DJI is SmartPie, with an investment scale of hundreds of millions of yuan. Statistics show that the number of investment and financing events in the entire 3D printing field in the primary market this year has reached a five - year high.
3D printing is a typical industry that competes in product strength. Looking at the development path of Topaz Technology, it mainly builds its moat through a closed - loop of hardware, software, and content ecosystem.
In terms of the content ecosystem, take the MakerWorld platform launched by Topaz Technology in 2023 as an example. Its official data shows that the monthly active users are nearly 10 million, and the number of 3D models exceeds one million. Creators can upload model designs and relevant printing configuration files on MakerWorld, and then with the official application software of Topaz, ordinary users can achieve "one - click printing".
Caption: Exhibits at Topaz Technology's offline store, provided by the interviewee.
The person in charge of the CUBEUNi studio told Tech Planet that on the MakerWorld platform, there are corresponding points for each model's printing, support, and rating. However, different from domestic creators who can only exchange points for consumables and other prizes, in the overseas market, creators can directly get cash income.
According to the above - mentioned person in charge, usually, creators' income consists of three parts: point exchange, additional rewards for exclusive models, and open commercial copyright. Usually, for a popular model, creators can "earn while lying down" tens of thousands of yuan. Moreover, just like trendy toy series products, if a product attracts attention, the subsequent products of the same series designed by the creator will also have a good download and usage volume.
In terms of hardware equipment, competing with low prices has become the collective choice of industry players. Looking at Creality, which has submitted its prospectus, from 2022 to 2024, the proportion of raw material costs in the sales cost has always been about 50%, and the gross profit margin during the same period has always been maintained at about 30%.
Caption: Creality's prospectus.
As the sales of 3D printers reach more ordinary users, the main sales channels have gradually changed from offline dealers to online direct - sales channels, mainly through opening stores on platforms such as Tmall and JD.com.
Taking Creality as an example, as of March 2025, Creality has opened 74 online stores. In 2022, 86.5% of its sales channels were contributed by offline dealers, and by 2024, the online and offline channels each accounted for about 50%. Correspondingly, the marketing expenses also consist of commissions paid to e - commerce platforms, advertising, and KOL promotions.
Competing for the 100 - billion - yuan market with low - price strategies
Judging from major social platforms, consumer - grade 3D printing is being popularized in fields such as education and household cultural and creative products. The finished products shared by users range from small daily items like figurines, fridge magnets, and keychains to complete sets of toys and household appliances.
However, the more lasting imagination and challenge for 3D printers still lie in how to further expand the boundaries of 3D printing content and enhance users' enthusiasm for continuous use, so as to prevent it from eventually becoming a "dust - collecting gadget" after the novelty wears off.
The MakerWorld platform launched by Topaz Technology is the key to building a content ecosystem. According to the person in charge of the CUBEUNi printing studio, Topaz Technology attaches great importance to exclusive models in various creator competitions and creation incentive support.
Previously, companies had direct conflicts over the content ecosystem. The MakerWorld community once issued a statement saying that it had taken legal actions against platforms such as Creality Cloud, Nexprint, and MakerOnline.
Topaz accused that there were a large number of suspected infringement acts on these platforms: not only were the exclusive models on MakerWorld mass - copied, but there were also cases of impersonating the original author's accounts. Some models were even used in commercial advertisements, directly violating the "no commercial use and no secondary creation" authorization clause of the original works.
Caption: Exhibits at Topaz Technology's offline store, provided by the interviewee.
Now, Topaz Technology, Creality, Anycubic, and SmartPie occupy 90% of the global market share, with shipment volumes of 1.2 million, 720,000, 550,000, and 500,000 units respectively in 2024. They are known as the "Four Little Dragons" in the 3D printing circle, and the competition among them is not only in the domestic market but also in the overseas market.
The person in charge of the CUBEUNi studio told Tech Planet that in the 3D printing market, overseas users are more geeky, and they have higher requirements for playability and model complexity. For example, stress - relieving toys have a large download volume in China, but models such as remote - controlled off - road vehicles are in even greater demand in the overseas market.
An overseas Chinese user told Tech Planet that in the past two years, in the European and American markets, one can clearly feel the intensifying competition among companies, with lower equipment prices and faster product innovation.
According to Precedence Research, the global 3D printing market reached a scale of 24.61 billion US dollars in 2024, and the CAGR is expected to be 18.5% in the next decade.
No one wants to miss this trillion - yuan blue - ocean market. But while competing for the market with low prices, their common challenge is, just like how touch - screen mobile phones were integrated into people's lives through the improvement of software and ecosystem, how to make every family own a 3D printer, and they need to create more usage scenarios to welcome the "iPhone moment" of this industry.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), author: Lin Jing. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.