Worldwide 3D printing revenue reached $4.48 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to Additive Manufacturing Research's Q2 2026 market insights report, dated September 14. That is up 12 percent from a year earlier and marks the sixth consecutive quarter of growth. The details underneath it, and the caveat attached to them, are more interesting.

First, the caveat. AM Research sells the report at $795 for a single user, $1,295 for a group and $1,795 for an enterprise license, and the public page contains none of the revenue figures. It confirms the report exists and describes it as quarterly analysis combining commentary with proprietary charts and data from the firm's Core Metal and Core Polymer market data products. Every number in this piece comes from 3DPrint.com's coverage, published September 17, and should be read as AM Research data as reported by 3DPrint.com. We have not seen the underlying report.

The Six-Quarter Line

As 3DPrint.com presents it, the market has climbed steadily since early 2025. In approximate terms: about $3.93 billion in Q1 2025, $4.01 billion in Q2 2025, $4.11 billion in Q3 2025, $4.35 billion in Q4 2025, $4.41 billion in Q1 2026, and now $4.48 billion. The measure covers metal, polymer and ceramic additive manufacturing, and it counts systems, materials and services together rather than hardware sales alone.

One flag on the year-over-year comparison. The 12 percent figure is against a Q2 2025 base of about $4.0 billion, and our copies of the coverage differ slightly on that base ($3.9 billion in one, about $4.01 billion in another). $4.48 billion against $4.01 billion works out to about 12 percent, whereas a $3.9 billion base would imply nearer 15 percent, so treat the base as approximate.

The sequential picture is far less dramatic than the annual one. By our arithmetic, Q2 2026 is only about 1.6 percent above Q1 2026. The quarterly increments in the first half of 2026, roughly $60 million and $70 million, are smaller than the roughly $240 million rise between Q3 and Q4 of 2025.

Our own archive needs a note. We previously reported a Q1 2026 figure of $4.35 billion and a Q4 2025 figure of $4.29 billion, based on earlier 3DPrint.com coverage. The new series puts Q4 2025 at about $4.35 billion and Q1 2026 at about $4.41 billion. The material we can see does not say whether that reflects revised data or something else, so we are not treating earlier quarters as settled. If you track this series, use one report's numbers consistently rather than splicing releases.

Metal, Polymer and the Service Layer

Per 3DPrint.com, the segment figures for Q2 2026, with the year-earlier comparison in parentheses, are:

  • Metal additive manufacturing: $1.81 billion (from $1.59 billion)
  • Polymer additive manufacturing: $2.68 billion (from $2.42 billion)
  • Services: about $2.50 billion (from $2.19 billion)

Run the percentages and the ordering is interesting. Metal is up roughly 14 percent, polymer up roughly 11 percent, and services up roughly 14 percent. Metal and services are outpacing polymer, though polymer remains the largest technology segment by revenue at $2.68 billion. These growth rates are our calculations from the reported dollar figures, not numbers taken from the report.

Services at about $2.5 billion account for more than half of the total market. A large share of the money in additive manufacturing appears to be spent on printing parts for customers, on engineering and on the work around the machines, rather than on new machines themselves. These are different cuts of the same market: metal and polymer together come to about $4.49 billion, essentially the whole total after rounding, so services overlaps both and the three should not be added. The coverage does not explain where ceramics fits.

What the coverage does not give us is equally worth stating. There are no unit shipment figures and no regional breakdown. We cannot say how many machines were sold or which regions drove growth. Revenue alone cannot distinguish a market where more people are buying printers from one where fewer buyers spend more.

The Warning Label

The most useful sentence in the coverage is not a number. Scott Dunham, AM Research's executive vice president, is quoted as describing the first half of 2026 as "robust growth for many as forecasted," and adding that "it remains to be seen if we may have a stall out again as capex is pressured due to interest rates."

The word "again" matters. It concedes that this recovery has stalled before, and it points at the specific mechanism. Industrial printers, especially metal systems, are capital purchases. When borrowing costs are high, buyers defer them, and the materials that follow them. Services revenue, by contrast, can be spent from operating budgets, which may be one reason it forms such a large share of the total. This is our reading of the logic, not something the report is quoted as saying, but it is consistent with Dunham's caution.

What It Means for Makers

If you print at home or run a small shop, this data covers a different part of the market than the one you buy from. Nothing in the reported figures says how consumer printers fared, and we would not infer it.

Still, there are practical takeaways.

  • The service side is healthy. If you rely on outsourced printing, whether metal parts you cannot make yourself or production runs beyond your capacity, the sector supplying that work is growing, not contracting.
  • Do not read a six-quarter streak as a guarantee. The quarter-on-quarter gain was small, and the AM Research executive quoted in the coverage himself raises the possibility of another stall as capex comes under interest-rate pressure.
  • Check the base before you quote it. The Q2 2025 comparison point and the prior-quarter figures differ between sources. If you cite this data, name the report and its date, and note that the full data is paywalled.

The bottom line: a 12 percent annual gain to $4.48 billion is a solid result for a maturing industry, and the services layer is the largest single piece of it. But the sequential growth is modest, the source data sits behind a paywall, and an AM Research executive is already flagging that interest rates could slow it down. Read the number as a healthy reading, not a forecast.

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