953In recent years, 3D printing technology has been gradually penetrating from traditional industrial fields into the consumer market. With the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the growth of personalized demand, small and medium-sized enterprises and individual users have an increasing demand for 3D printing products.
According to data from fortunebusinessinsights, the global 3D printing market is valued at $1.933 billion in 2024, and it is expected that from 2025 to 2032, the market will have a compound annual growth rate of about 23.4%.
By 2032, the global 3D printing market is expected to exceed $10.174 billion.
Image source: fortunebusinessinsights
It is in this market context that the Bambu Lab brand from Shenzhen, China, captured the business opportunity, quickly entered the overseas market with 3D printers as bait, and became a leader in the global consumer-grade 3D printing field.
It is reported that the brand achieved a total annual revenue of 2.7 billion yuan in 2023; in 2024, the total annual revenue is even more impressive, ranging between 5.5 billion and 6 billion yuan, approaching the 6 billion mark, showing a strong momentum of development!
So, how did the Bambu Lab brand win the favor of the overseas market step by step?
Image source: Bambu Lab
From Big Company Elites to Startup Team: The Origin of the Brand
It is understood that the Bambu Lab brand was officially founded in Shenzhen in 2020 by a group of 3D printer enthusiasts with a strong R&D background.
The founder, Mr. Tao, once worked as an R&D engineer at DJI. After leaving, he gathered former DJI executives and engineers, as well as core technical backbones from well-known companies such as Alibaba and ByteDance, to start a business together.
These veteran figures all have rich experience in fields such as mechanics, mechanical design, motion control, machine vision, and artificial intelligence.
Image source: Bambu Lab
At the beginning of its establishment, it is said that the team set a goal: to use industrial-grade technology to create consumer-grade products, making 3D printing easier and cheaper.
This concept was validated in the first Bambu Lab X1 series product launched in 2022.
The team chose the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, which gathers geeks, and attracted the attention of engineers and product designers by publishing R&D logs and showing iterative test records.
In the end, with a crowdfunding amount of 47.28 million yuan, it broke out of the circle and was rated as the "Best Invention of the Year" by Time magazine in the United States at that time.
Image source: Bambu Lab
Social Media Marketing: Conquering Target Users with "Visualization"
In the era of social media, relying solely on product strength is not enough for a brand to quickly break out of the circle.
To this end, the Bambu Lab brand has put a lot of effort into overseas marketing, leveraging the communication advantages of mainstream social media such as TikTok and YouTube to improve the speed and breadth of brand communication among target customers.
TikTok: Attracting Young Users with Creative Short Videos
Bambu Lab regards TikTok as its core marketing position, using intuitive and interesting content to showcase the practical applications of 3D printers.
As of now, the official TikTok account @bambulab_official has accumulated 159,700 followers and received 1.8 million likes.
Image source: TikTok
Most of the content released by the brand revolves around "making daily items with 3D printers," such as phone holders, desktop ornaments, mouse shells, slippers, children's toys, etc., allowing users to truly experience the application value and fun of 3D printing technology in daily life.
Take the most viewed TikTok video on the account as an example. The video shows a very realistic lion ornament made with a Bambu Lab 3D printer, attracting many potential 3D printer enthusiasts to watch.
At present, it has received 15.7 million views and 237,300 likes, with excellent promotional results.
Image source: TikTok
Bambu Lab also attaches great importance to influencer marketing, actively cooperating with 3D printing and technology influencers on TikTok, and forming viral fission on the TikTok platform by releasing creative promotional short videos.
The 3D printing influencer @ellygmr, who has 685,100 followers, shot a creative short video for Bambu Lab's 3D printer.
Image source: TikTok
In the video, the influencer first filmed the entire unboxing process, then showed various interesting small ornaments made with this Bambu Lab 3D printer, which can be freely changed in shape and color according to one's ideas. This kind of product demonstration based on daily life scenarios concretely reflects the actual functions and user experience of the 3D printer.
So far, this creative short video has exceeded 1 million views and received 37,200 likes, attracting some users to leave comments asking: "Where can I buy this 3D printer?" "Where can I buy it in Colombia?"
The conversion effect is obvious.
Image source: TikTok
YouTube: Professional Reviews Impress Hardcore Geeks
Compared with the pan-entertainment content on TikTok, Bambu Lab adopts a more professional strategy on YouTube, mainly targeting hardcore users such as engineers and designers.
The brand cooperates with technology bloggers on YouTube to answer the most concerned questions of target users, such as printing accuracy, speed, and ease of use, through in-depth reviews and comparative tests.
Mark Spurrel, a YouTube tech blogger with 239,000 subscribers, is one of the brand's partners. He shot a comprehensive review video for the Bambu Lab A1 printer.
The review covers the three major issues that general consumers care about: the accuracy of printing, the time required for printing products, and the difficulty of controlling the printer. So far, the video has reached 210,000 views.
Image source: YouTube
Many users placed orders directly after watching the review and shared their user experiences in the comment section, forming favorable word-of-mouth communication for the brand:
"I just bought the A1 printer during the Black Friday sale and am very satisfied with it."
"Great video, I just got my first A1 and am looking forward to using it for 3D printing."
Image source: YouTube
Independent Website Layout: Building a Brand's Own Overseas Base
In the process of expanding overseas markets, Bambu Lab has also carried out multi-channel sales. In addition to entering mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, it has also focused on building its own independent website.
The existence of the independent website provides Bambu Lab with a complete space for content display. Through simple and professional page design, a unified product visual system, and detailed technical parameter descriptions, it conveys the core value of "high-performance universalization" to users.
Compared with third-party platforms, independent websites can also avoid interference from other brands and ensure that consumers' attention is fully focused on Bambu Lab's product and technological advantages.
In addition, the independent website also provides a stable operational foundation for the Bambu Lab brand.
Third-party e-commerce platforms often have uncertainties such as rule changes and category adjustments, while independent websites enable Bambu Lab to control the marketing rhythm independently, avoid operational fluctuations caused by platform policy changes, build a more stable overseas sales network, and lay a solid foundation for the brand's long-term development.
It is not difficult to see that successful overseas brands often do not rely excessively on a single sales path. Multi-channel development is the way to go.
Image source: Bambu Lab
Inspiration: Going Overseas Requires Dual Thinking of Technology + Users
The case of Bambu Lab proves that the perfect combination of technological strength and user insight is the "golden key" to opening up overseas markets.
When "Made in China" no longer relies on price advantages, but meets consumer-level demand through the sinking of industrial-grade technology and precise marketing, it can better establish a competitive advantage in overseas markets.
For domestic companies that are watching overseas opportunities, whether in 3D printing or other technology fields, if they can deeply understand the needs of overseas users at the product R&D stage, continuously polish product competitiveness, and formulate communication plans that fit the characteristics of the local market, they will have a better chance of making breakthroughs in overseas markets.
The overseas market is full of opportunities. Enterprises need to be fully prepared to win the recognition of overseas consumers with strength and sincerity.
