Artec 3D is a company which produces the best professional handheld 3D scanners. With its headquarters in Luxembourg and other divisions in California and Moscow, Artec 3D celebrates this year its 10th anniversary.
Andrei Vakulenko and Daniela Carr, Chief Business Development officer and Head of Marketing & Public Relations, share their view of the 3D scanning market with a focus on Artec 3D.
What should our readers know about Artec 3D?
Our 3D scanners are sold through a network of more than 100 resellers all over the world. They provide live demo and solutions that best meet the needs of our clients regarding 3D software, 3D printers and software.
Our customers really appreciate our products which are a 10 year-investment. Statistics show that 93% of our scanners purchased 10 years ago are still used today.
In the meantime, we have developed other products (scanners and software) and spent more than 20% of our income in research and development. Once per year, a new product is unveiled to the market.
So we improve the user experience each year because we enhance our software.
What is your main target?
Our services are intended for companies (B2B market) since we are selling professional 3D scanners (thus not cheap products). In fact, 90% of international top brands are part of our clients (Tesla, Boeing, Google, Coca Cola and many more).
Why do people use a 3D scanner?
A 3D scanner might be used for different purposes. People use a scanner to design the road to a new product for instance. Designers might want to create the new shape of a refrigerator or check the quality of a pre-existing product or just 3D scan a real person as we did with President Barack Obama.
One of our clients in France for instance produces about 100 big water pumps per year, and since there is no technical documentation for such a production, they make use of our 3D scanners.
3D scanners can also be used to make a difference between two products or to make additional equipment.
Last, our main customers are industrial mechanical engineers. They use our 3D scanners for quality insurance to design a product or prototyping.
Other industries we are working with are aerospace, medical and universities. Other professionals include archaeologists and palaeontologists.
What is the geographic scope of your market?
We sell worldwide. Our market number 1 was Japan. Now leaders of sales are the United States. Germany and France are part of the top 10 companies where we sell the most.
What is the best-sold product?
Eva. People love that product very much. Since 5 years, the model remains unique but the software has evolved significantly.
However, our product Leo is becoming the game changer on the market. It is the first scanner one can use without computer. Its manufacturing requires the use of artificial intelligence.
Could you tell us more about the Shapify Booth?
The Shapify Booth is mainly used for marketing and research purposes and can scan up to 800 people per day.
With one-click, the solution allows to scan people in 12 seconds with automatic data post-processing. After uploading the data on the cloud, the 3D model is automatically made and shared on social media.
It is also used during exhibitions as a marketing tool to demonstrate how fast our technology can go.
It has already been used in the University of Luxembourg as part of a research. We do not sell it but if any other university shows a particular interest in the technology, we will be glad to provide them with it.
What are the major difficulties you have already encountered?
The 3D scanning market is not yet a mature market. 2D scanners for instance can easily be used but 3D scanners require a special training.
So, our big challenge for this year is to produce 3D scanners with high precision results which require as little as possible training sessions for our customers.
What is your overall view of the 3D scanning market?
It’s a very interesting and growing market. There are very interesting leading companies and we are very glad to be in the competition. The market is growing fast but the competition is not so important for now. The most important thing is to continue to expand this market.
Regarding the offer to individuals, other products created by big companies (such as Microsoft) did exist but none of them has ever been successful. So now that other companies are entering this market, things might change.
What are Artec’s prospects of development?
Each year, we create a new scanner that provides the better results and ease the user’s experience.
Another part of our strategy which is also Artec 3D’s big competitive advantage, is to enhance the quality of our support (training, service) to our customers. We love our customers; therefore, it’s our goal to provide them with the best service.
Have you ever used 3D printing for a 3D scanning service?
No, this is what our resellers do. We do not want to “cannibalize’” the business of our resellers. We love them so we help them to provide this service through ours.
We are on a niche market, and as it’s a very important part of the market, we prefer to improve our 3D scanners and software and sell them to the companies which provide this service.
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