3D printing market grows to $4.35B in Q1 2026, AM Research says

The numbers

Additive Manufacturing Research (AMR) tracks the 3D printing market quarter by quarter, and its Q1 2026 data is out. The combined market came in at $4.35 billion, up from $4.29 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 13.1% higher than the same quarter a year earlier.

Broken down by segment, metal additive manufacturing reached $1.76 billion, compared with $1.52 billion in Q1 2025. Polymer AM hit $2.59 billion, up from $2.33 billion a year prior. Additive manufacturing services, the bucket that covers printing work done for customers, rose to $2.42 billion from $2.07 billion.

Why it is growing

Scott Dunham, AM Research's executive vice president, said the first quarter mostly kept the growth trend alive. He pointed to global supply chain reorganization and government backed defense and national security programs, where older production methods cannot always respond fast enough.

"Growth is not even across the industry, but it certainly is a growth period," Dunham said, noting that momentum carried over from the second half of last year.

What the reports cover

The Q1 2026 reports span ceramic, metal, and polymer printers along with materials and services. AMR's vendor list is a roll call of the field: 3D Systems, Stratasys, EOS, HP, Nikon SLM Solutions, Formlabs, Carbon, Creality, Bambu Lab, Renishaw, and Bright Laser Technologies, among others. The firm builds its tracking on roughly a decade of quarterly history and publishes ten year forward forecasts.

Reading the trend

A 1.4% sequential bump sounds modest, but the year over year jump of 13.1% is the number worth noting. The market is not booming uniformly. Defense spending and reshoring are doing the heavy lifting, while consumer and some industrial segments stay flat. For buyers and builders, that split is the real story: the money is moving toward applications tied to national security and supply chain control, not toward gadgets.