3D Printing Stocks Analysis

ExOne is the most recent 3D printing stocks to go public. Long overshadowed by 3D Systems and Stratasys, ExOne is now coming into its own limelight.

Investor site Seeking Alpha sheds some light on ExOne’s profile.

ExOne is a relatively new player compared to the other two heavy weights – the company was formed in 2005 as a spin-off of Extrude Hone Corporation, a developer of nontraditional machining processes and automated systems. The company is currently operating in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Through research and development, the company has achieved considerable success in additive manufacturing. Notable ExOne products include S-Max, S-Print, M-Print and M-Lab. Most of these products are meant for industrial use, and have the capability of manufacturing molds with sand printing and metal and glass printing.

Almost all of the ExOne products cater to the industrial customers, and the company has some of the largest printers available in the market. ExOne’s customers are showing considerable interest in the products and the company is receiving new orders. 3D printer sales have gone up for the company in the fourth quarter of the last year. As a result, ExOne was able to post impressive full year results. Another target market for ExOne is the researchers and educational customers – M-Lab is specifically designed to be used in labs and it is one of the smaller printers available in the company’s arsenal.

So, there are two sets of target markets for the company: industrial customers, which require ExOne products for rapid prototyping and building molds, and researchers and educational customers, which convert their experiments into reality using ExOne equipment. Industrial customers are a big segment and ExOne’s products are getting good response, which should allow the company to grow further in this segment.

Read the full analysis at Seeking Alpha.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) has a $43 billion market cap and is the largest printer manufacturer in the world. But HP has not really embraced 3D printing yet and may need to make an acquisition to truly enter the market.

Seeking Alpha describes the current situation for HP:

In April 2010, HPQ signed a collaboration agreement with one of the 3D printer companies, Stratasys to create a 3D printer called DesignJet 3D. The retail price was over $17,000 when they first came out, and it doesn’t appear that HPQ is making a giant impact with this printer.

HPQ needs to come and buy either SSYS or 3D Systems. HPQ needs to play defense, by going on the offensive. It might not seem like it, but this is the same scenario as Eastman Kodak being the 800-pound gorilla in cameras and then falling behind when the time came for digital cameras. HPQ doesn’t want to miss out on this revolution. 3D printing is within 3-5 years of becoming affordable for the general public. 3D Systems has launched a personal 3D printer for as cheap as $1300. Moore’s Law is working in the 3D printing market as prices have drop 90% in the last 5 years and will continue to drop in the future.

Look at the relative stock price of HPQ vs the current 3D printing leaders (3D Systems, Stratasys, and Proto Labs). HP is down 39% while the 3D printing portfolio is up 112% over the last 12 months.

The market is still early. Will HP make a move this year or wait for the market to mature?

Via Seeking Alpha.

Gorilla photo by poplinre used under Creative Commons license.