ExOne Focuses On Different Materials For 3D Printers
ExOne (XONE) will use proceeds of the $95 million raised in its initial public offering this month to invest in new materials for its 3D printing systems, in a bid to expand its customer base.
ExOne CEO Kent Rockwell and company President Dave Burns on Friday spoke with IBD in a phone interview.
ExOne, along with rivals 3D Systems (DDD) and Stratasys (SSYS), has received lots of media and investor attention. Until recently, the latter two had been among the best-performing stocks for the past six months.
Newcomer ExOne hopped aboard the 3D printer stocks train when it priced at $18 a share and rose 26.5% in its Feb. 7 debut.
The stock fell nearly 4% on Monday, after 3D Systems reported Q4 revenue that missed analysts' expectations. Shares of 3D Systems and Stratasys fell harder on the news (see related story).
But 3D Systems and Stratasys had been in a downtrend since late January.
Despite some analyst reports touting 3D printing and a favorable comment by President Obama about the industry's potential in his State of the Union address this month, a smattering of reports on online investor websites say the technology is overhyped.
ExOne does not focus on the consumer side of 3D printing, as 3D Systems and Stratasys do to an extent. That's a big difference, Rockwell says.
"There has been a lot of hype given to the consumer applications side of this business (but just) a little on the industrial side," Rockwell said.
But he looks past the criticism, saying ExOne is in the right market with the right products.
ExOne focuses solely on printers for large industrial companies with big capital spending budgets, such as aerospace, automotive, heavy equipment, and liquid and gas transmission.
What also sets ExOne apart from 3D Systems and Stratasys, he says, is that it uses a wider range of materials to print products. These materials provide the ability for ExOne printers to make production-grade objects and castings out of stainless steel, bronze and glass, silica sand, and ceramics.
The company is in various stages of qualifying additional industrial materials for printing, such as titanium, tungsten carbide, aluminum and magnesium.
While the technology is most often referred to as 3D printing, the common industry term is "additive manufacturing."
"We don't see ourselves competing with other 3D printer companies in the additive manufacturing world," Burns said. "We see ExOne as displacing traditional manufacturing processes. We create machines from an industrial perspective that are robust and shop-ready."
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