Every month, 3D Hubs publishes its trend report on the state of the 3D printing industry; All3DP extracts and comments the most interesting trends.

3D Hubs is an international network of 3D printer owners (so called hubs) that offer 3D printing services in their neighborhood. People who want to have things 3D printed, can use the network to find the nearest hub and get their stuff printed there. The 3D Hubs network is constantly growing: In June, it consisted of over 18,500 3D printers in 150 countries.

The trend report is based on data from the 3D Hubs network. New to the report this month is an overview revealing who is 3D printing.

Highest rated 3D desktop printers

Month after month, the 3D Hubs members and their customers rate the print quality of their printers. Only printers with more than 35 reviews are included in the top 10 list:

As in the months before, delta-style 3D printers rank highest. Print quality is overall extremely high, as the ratings of the printers are very close tother: From 4.83 points for number 1 to 4.75 points for number 10 (down to 4.71 points for number 20 – not on the chart).

What is striking: The Ultimaker 2 did not even make it into the top 20 list – it failed to get 35 reviews though it heads the printer model distribution list as the most popular 3D printer.

Printer model distribution

As far as distribution is concerned, the Ultimaker 2 is still number 1: 1,338 3D Hubs members own an Ultimaker 2; that is 7.7%. Number 2 is the Prusa i3 (1,256 printers on the network, i.e. 7.2%) followed by the Replicator 2 and 2x models (1,156 and 665 printers, respectively).

Popular printers by region

The MakerBot Replicator 2 and 2x made it into the top 5 lists on all four regions: North and South America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The Ultimaker 2 and 1 are particularly popular in Europe and Asia Pacific but not in North America.. In Asia Pacific the Ultimaker 2 even overtook last month’s number 1, the MakerBot Replicator 2.

New to the top 5 list in North America is the Printrbot Simple Metal.

Popular print categories

The share of prototype printing increased in June: 32.4% of all prints on 3D Hubs were for prototyping. The share of Hobby/DIY amounted to 22.6% while the share of 3D printed gadgets slightly decreased to 14.2%.

Color Distribution

White and black continue to be most heavily used colors in 3D printing: For the first time, they account for more than half of all 3D prints.

New: Who is 3D printing?

In June, 3D Hubs also surveyed theirs users to find out more about them. Based on the personal background and on their usage of 3D printing, 3D Hubs identified 4 groups:

Professionals use 3D printing as part of their work. They are designers or engineers and use 3D printing mostly for prototyping (85%), for research (32%) and for manufacturing products (18%).

Makers use 3D printing for personal projects, typically for their hobbies; most of them create 3D models on their own.

Pioneers are mostly new to 3D printing. They 3D print for personal projects, using 3D models from content platforms.

Students/Researchers use 3D printing as part of their education or for research.