Market Analysis for 3D Printer

✅ Paper Type: Free Essay	✅ Subject: Marketing
✅ Wordcount: 1948 words	✅ Published: 2nd Oct 2017

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Market Analysis

Target Market

3-D printing is the process of creating three-dimensional solid objects from digital models. Our 3D printer specializes in manufacturing circuit motherboards and chips. In general all technology-based industries are our target market. Our prime target market is computer companies like Apple, Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc. and Smart phone companies like Blackberry, Samsung, Apple, Nokia, LG, etc. Hence there is a wide market demand for 3D printers due to its unique features.

Motherboards and circuit chips are essential for the design of most technology-based instruments. Industries designing and involved in systems engineering of these instruments acquire them from various companies. Foxconn, Gigabyte Technology, Gumstix, IBM and Intel are some of the market leaders in the motherboard and Integrated circuit chips manufacturing business.

Support services

The circuit models to be printed generally need to be in a format supported by the printer. Formats such as layouts from AWR design environment and Simulink are currently the two formats being supported by the printer. The two are the most popular design environments for contemporary engineers. The design engineers of the customer company will be provided will all the necessary support.

Support will be provided in the following ways:

Training sessions for design engineers to convert to supported circuit layout format
Training on general maintenance of printer
Free layout conversion support for the first six months for for formats different from AWR and Simulink
Provide specialized design engineers for companies

Market growth

3D printers are quite novel. The current businesses based on 3D printing have blossomed, such as Shapeways. They have uploaded around 100, 000 new products for printing every month in 2013. http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/2394-2013-shapeways-3d-printing-year-in-review.html

The growth of the use of 3D printing can also be noted from exponential upward increase in number of 3D printable items in Thingiverse, which is an open-source design repository. Figure 1 is the outcome of the analysis achieved by a partnership of the Economist and IBM

Figure 1: Growth of open-source design repositories

http://on3dprinting.com/tag/industry/

The statistics discussed above clearly portray the rapid growth in use of 3D printers in general.

Market Trend

Many major companies currently are using 3D printers. Some of them include Boeing, Ford, Nike, General electric and Cochlear. Boeing for example uses them for making airline parts. The 787 Dreamliner has around 30 3D printed parts.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/3d-printing-10-companies-using-it-in-ground-breaking-ways/

These examples portray the trend in shifting to 3D printing instead of traditional manufacturing techniques. Due to the rapid development in 3D printing, the technology is expected to mature in the coming years into a cost effective approach for electronics industry.

Market evolution

As it can be seen from the market trend section, many companies are now using 3D printers for manufacturing. The market is expected to evolve dramatically if the cost of mass production can be somehow reduced.

Some of 3D printers advantages:

It will be faster and cheaper than the usual prototyping methods.
Its Greater ability to customize products.
It will be able to perform at uni-stage process, which saves the cost of tools.
It will help in producing motherboards and circuit chips which more easily than traditional methods of manufacturing them.

Competitor reaction

The metals 3-D printing space: 3D Systems Corp., ExOne Co., and Arcam:Some companies which use 3-D printing systems that can print in metals are 3D Systems Corp, ExOne and Arcam. ExOne offers sytems which will be able to print in metals, sand, glass. Companies like this will be able to produce 3D printed motherboards and circuit chips when they see our product, since they are already capable in producing in metals. High completion between these companies will cause the cost of the 3D circuit chips and motherboards to fall. Since Smart phones and computers will benefit highly from the 3D motherboards and circuit chips, Smart phone and computer companies might even subsidies companies producing 3D circuit chips and motherboards.

Business plan template:http://www.business.gov.au/Howtoguides/Thinkingofstartingabusiness/Whatplanningtoolscanhelpme/Pages/Businessplanguidesandtemplates.aspx

Marketing Plan

Product

Our product is a novel 3d printing technology that prints Motherboards and Integrated circuits. Next dimension’s 3d printers can be used for manufacturing and also prototyping. Design engineers can simulate the circuit models and generate circuit layouts. These layouts can then be used to print out the circuit directly. The printed circuits can be used tested for different required specifications.

Pricing strategy

The pricing strategy involved thorough analysis of the present 3D printer market. Although our product is a novel 3D printer, we strive to offer the best value for money for our printer. Potential competitors such as Stratasys have printers ranging from $15, 000 to $75, 000. Production printers provided by them are $50, 000 and above. Our printers will cost $42, 000 and provide the exceptional novel technology of printing Integrated Circuit chips and Motherboards.

http://www.stratasys.com/resources/~/media/970DE4A9F3134110817C731796C5CA5E.pdf

Advertising & promotional strategy

Planned promotion /advertising type	Expected business improvement	Cost ($)
Online Advertising	Online advertising allows more customers worldwide to know about the product compared to traditional advertising. Internet advertising is ideal for businesses with a national or international target market and large-scale distribution capabilities It is more cost effective and less time consuming.	5000
Print media advertising	Newspapers and magazines are abundant in supply and these will create greater exposure and better and frequent advertisement. Compared to other media advertisements, print ads are less intrusive. Passive processes such as listening to radio and watching television may or may not compel attention. Whereas a person makes a concious decision to engage to the images and words of a newspaper	15000
Mail out	It is highly measureable which helps companies to measure the result of advertising campaigns. It is more tangible than other forms of advertising.	4000
Social media campaign	It is the most cost effective way to promote a brand or a product and spread its advertisement through the internet or media. The amount of information that can be provided is much greater than in any other form of communication. One of the defining characteristics of socal media advertising is interactivity. We will have official accounts on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, youtube and our own forum for consultation. We aim to monitor social networks and answer customer queries. This will also allow us to have an understanding of our state in the market. Information and analyses from these networks will be sent to our management team so that we can improve our services continually.	NA

Sales & distribution channels

Channel type	Percentage of sales (%)	Advantages	Disadvantages
Internet	75	Greater degree of freedom for customers. Supplier saves time and cost of distribution of their products. They are also able to interact in a massively growing market. Automatic marketing sales and delivery makes the marketing a lot easier and quicker. Online sales also allow instant feedback on new changes. The marketing costs are relatively lower and better targeting. Promotional strategies can be specifically aimed at potential customers.	The internet allows impersonal interaction between seller and the buyer since not enough communication. Online fraud can happen which means loss of money for both the consumer and the producer. When the website goes down, company loses out on payment transactions which means less profit for the company. It is not always easy to have a team of staff who are efficient enough to manage the website.
Wholesale	15	Since products are bought in bulk and at a cheaper rate there is higher profit margin.	It requires a large amount of money buying wholesale products. Since manufacturers’ require minimum order quantity in order for you to take advantage of the wholesale price, you need to shell out a large amount of capital.
Shop front	10 (initially)	We will start off with a store in Sydney and keep expanding. 3D printing concept is still quite new and allowing our customer to have a first hand experience of how the process works will do wonders. Design engineers will be present from time to time to also conduct talks on the layout generation process.	The cost side of this attempt is a drawback. We do not expect to generate enough sales through this channel to make it profitable initially. However we believe that starting up a business with a shop front will be profitable in the long run.