Chuangxiang 3D IPO: The Copyright Dilemma Under the Equality of Creation

Questioning AI · The Era of Equal Rights in Creation: How Do Copyright Risks Impact the 3D Printing Industry?

Author | Ding Mao

Editor | Zhang Fan

Cover Source | Visual China

On March 9, 2026, Chuangxiang 3D once again submitted its IPO prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, aiming for a main board listing, with China International Capital Corporation serving as the sole sponsor. As a leader in the 3D printing industry, this marks the company’s third attempt to enter the capital market. If progress goes smoothly, Chuangxiang 3D may earn the title of the “First Consumer-Grade 3D Printing Stock” in Hong Kong.

However, the prospectus reveals not only the company’s expansion but also its retreat in the face of fierce competition from Tu Zhu. The former industry leader, having lost its top position, also shows warning signs of shrinking profits and tightening cash flow in its financial statements.

So, under the trend of equal rights in creation, is consumer-grade 3D printing really a good business? Is Chuangxiang 3D still worth paying attention to?

Is 3D Printing a Good Sector?

Before analyzing Chuangxiang 3D, it’s important to clarify whether consumer-grade 3D printing is truly a promising sector.

In recent years, as a hot industry, the main drivers of 3D printing’s industry momentum come from two dimensions: one is the huge incremental space unlocked by the concept of creation equality; the other is the profitability certainty under software and ecosystem closed loops, along with the ongoing creation of consumables and related businesses.

First, the idea of creation equality is the biggest source of imagination for consumer-grade 3D printing.

With the trend of consumption upgrading, the public’s demand for products has shifted from standard industrial goods to personalized and customized items, driving the rise of fast response, small batch, flexible distributed manufacturing. Consumer-grade 3D printing has become the core platform for this shift.

Despite increasing demand, issues such as complex modeling, expensive materials, and low success rates have long hindered industry penetration. The development of generative AI technology, especially in fields like text generation models, intelligent slicing, and automated design, has significantly lowered the barriers to 3D modeling. Coupled with cloud-based community resources, this provides the possibility of breaking industry boundaries.

Meanwhile, technological upgrades and breakthroughs in materials science have driven down printing costs and expanded application scope, further accelerating industry penetration and ushering consumer-grade 3D printing into an era of creation equality.

From a potential space perspective, according to Zhuoshi Consulting, the global consumer-grade 3D printing market was valued at $4.1 billion in 2024 and is expected to soar to $16.9 billion by 2029, with a CAGR of 33.0%.

Chart: Global Consumer-Grade 3D Printing Market Size Data Source: Zhuoshi Consulting, 36Kr Compilation

Second, besides the incremental space, profitability certainty also enhances industry attractiveness.

Currently, the consumer-grade 3D printing market exhibits a oligopolistic pattern, with the top five companies all based in China, accounting for over 70% of GMV. This high concentration, built on supply chain advantages and early technological barriers, raises the industry’s entry threshold.

Chart: Competitive Landscape of Consumer-Grade 3D Printing Data Source: Chuangxiang 3D IPO Prospectus, 36Kr Compilation

At the same time, leading companies have created high switching costs through self-developed algorithms and content community building. With the help of social media, they have connected creation and sharing, giving value to 3D printing traffic, which further stimulates individual creativity and enhances brand ecosystem stickiness.

Under high barriers and strong stickiness, mainstream platforms have gradually developed peripheral services, consumables, and accessories. Compared to the more cyclical hardware revenue, consumables and software services feature high frequency, high gross margins, and resistance to cycles, representing typical “long-tail revenue.”

This unique attribute enables consumer-grade 3D printing to realize “full lifecycle value extraction,” not only ensuring high gross margins for industry leaders but also shifting market valuation logic from traditional hardware to software ecosystem services.

Expansion and Core Business Collapse

Turning back to Chuangxiang 3D, as a global leader in consumer-grade 3D printing, the company’s main products and services include 3D printers, consumables, 3D scanners, laser engravers, accessories, and transaction services for products and parts.

According to the IPO prospectus, from 2022 to 2025, the company’s revenue grew from 1.346 billion yuan to 3.13 billion yuan, with a CAGR of 32.4%.

Chart: Revenue Performance of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

By product, 3D printers remain the main revenue source, accounting for 57% in 2025 despite a declining proportion. Meanwhile, revenue from consumables and 3D scanners continues to rise, potentially forming new growth curves.

Chart: Revenue Breakdown by Business of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

By region, the company’s market focus has shifted significantly in recent years, from China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) to North America and Europe. In 2025, North America and Europe accounted for 57.3% of revenue, while China dropped to 25.9%. Overseas markets are becoming a new growth driver.

Chart: Regional Business Performance of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Chuangxiang 3D IPO Prospectus, 36Kr Compilation

By channel, online direct sales have rapidly increased, rising from 35.7% in 2023 to 48.5% in 2025. Domestically, the company mainly relies on platforms like Tmall and JD.com; overseas, it focuses on DTC, supplemented by Amazon and eBay.

Chart: Channel Business Performance of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Chuangxiang 3D IPO Prospectus, 36Kr Compilation

Overall, the company has maintained high growth in recent years, demonstrating good growth potential. However, focusing on the core 3D printer business reveals a different picture.

From 2022 to 2025, the CAGR of the 3D printer business was only 17%, far below the overall growth rate. In 2024, the year-over-year increase was just 0.9%. Price and volume analysis shows that the main driver of revenue growth was the increase in average selling price, while sales volume continued to decline. Between 2022 and 2025, the average price rose from 1,306 yuan to 2,404 yuan, but sales volume dropped from 842,000 units to 742,000 units—a 12% decline. Notably, despite higher ASP, gross profit margins for the core business continued to decline due to intensified competition.

Chart: Revenue Data of Chuangxiang 3D Printers Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

Chart: Annual Sales Volume and Average Price of Chuangxiang 3D Printers Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

The reason for this is the rise of new competitors like Tu Zhu. In May 2022, Tu Zhu launched the X1 flagship, introducing mature drone technology into consumer-grade 3D printers. With revolutionary high-speed and multi-color printing features, it rewrote industry logic and competition patterns, squeezing the cost-performance advantage that Chuangxiang 3D relied on.

As a result, Chuangxiang 3D’s market share continued to shrink. In 2024, Tu Zhu shipped 1.2 million units with a 29% market share, surpassing Chuangxiang 3D for the first time and claiming the industry crown. During the same period, Chuangxiang 3D’s market share fell to 16.9%. In terms of GMV, the loss is even more striking: in 2024, Tu Zhu’s GMV reached 730 million yuan with a 35.5% share, while Chuangxiang 3D only achieved 230 million yuan, with an 11.2% share.

Chart: Market Share of Leading Consumer-Grade 3D Printing Companies Data Source: Chuangxiang 3D IPO Prospectus, 36Kr Compilation

Success and Failure of Cost-Performance

Chuangxiang 3D’s decline to some extent stems from over-reliance on past successful strategies.

In the early maker era, the consumer-grade 3D printing market was polarized: either expensive industrial giants costing thousands of dollars or small, DIY-friendly semi-finished products with limited volume. The core demands then were “usable, affordable, large volume.”

In 2016, Chuangxiang 3D launched CR-10S, solving the challenge of one-time complete printing at half the price of European and American products, with monthly sales surpassing 20,000 units. In 2018, Ender-3 further brought printers into the “thousand-yuan era.” The combination of low price and high quality created a “step-up” experience, rapidly boosting sales, building a large user base, and establishing a premium brand image. From 2020 to 2024, the company shipped a total of 4.4 million units, with a market share of 27.9%.

This development path shows that Chuangxiang 3D’s expansion was driven by a hardware-centric, cost-performance strategy—leveraging strong supply chain capabilities to act as “price cutters” and industry pioneers. This approach was highly effective in early industry stages, quickly educating the market and popularizing hardware, with scale effects supporting product upgrades.

Chart: Gross Profit Margin Trends of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

However, as the industry evolved, after 2022, new entrants like Tu Zhu introduced disruptive products, shifting core demand from “hardware cost-performance” to “user experience.” Lower entry barriers and improved experience moved consumer-grade 3D printers from niche tech to mass market, igniting incremental demand and ushering in an “iPhone moment” for the industry.

This shift in driving forces put traditional giants like Chuangxiang 3D under technological pressure, making it difficult to respond quickly. While Tu Zhu advanced in algorithms, ecosystem, and user experience, Chuangxiang 3D remained stuck in its low-price hardware expansion model. It wasn’t until May 2023 that the company launched the K1 series targeting this new demand, but nearly a year of vacuum left consumer perceptions dominated by competitors. The once-dominant leader could only follow passively after missing the first-mover advantage.

Solutions and New Challenges

To improve the situation, Chuangxiang 3D has made efforts in three areas:

First, increasing R&D investment to rebuild the hardware’s underlying logic. From 2022 to 2025, R&D expenses rose from 87 million yuan to 222 million yuan, with the R&D expense ratio increasing from 6.4% to 7.1%. This investment is reflected in product iterations and category expansion, with high-end models like K1 Max and K2 Plus launched since 2023 to catch up with technological gaps and meet market demands.

Chart: R&D Expenses Changes Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

Second, boosting sales expenses to promote products and expand channels. To better understand end-user needs, the company shifted from traditional distribution to online direct sales and increased social media advertising.

As a result, online sales’ proportion grew from 35.7% in 2023 to 48.5% in 2025. However, this channel reshaping came with “traffic tax” pressures: marketing and advertising expenses increased from 30 million yuan to 270 million yuan, an 8-fold rise; platform commissions surged from 2 million yuan to 96 million yuan, a 47-fold increase. Overall sales expense ratio rose from 8.1% in 2022 to 18.2% in 2025.

Chart: Sales Expenses Changes Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

Third, addressing software and ecosystem shortfalls. Although Chuangxiang 3D had established Chuangxiang Cloud in 2020, it was long regarded merely as an accessory tool rather than a core driver of user engagement.

It wasn’t until 2023, when Tu Zhu’s MakerWorld became the world’s most active model platform, that Chuangxiang 3D realized content and community are more resilient than hardware. In recent years, the company increased investments and integrated AI technology into Chuangxiang Cloud. By the end of 2025, the platform had over 5.7 million registered users globally.

Besides Chuangxiang Cloud, the company launched Nexbie, a 3D creative product e-commerce platform, completing the “hardware + software + content + transaction” ecosystem. This aims to leverage ecosystem stickiness to enhance hardware penetration and reshape growth logic.

Chart: Business Model of Chuangxiang 3D Data Source: Chuangxiang 3D IPO Prospectus, 36Kr Compilation

Through bold reforms, the company’s performance rebounded in 2025, with core printer sales and revenue returning to growth. Sales volume increased slightly from 720,000 to 740,000 units, driving revenue up 26% to 1.78 billion yuan.

However, problems also emerged: increased marketing and R&D expenses intensified profit pressures. Despite maintaining a gross profit margin of 31%, operating and net profits turned slightly negative. The company explained this was due to one-time dividend payouts, but the decline in core operating profit indicates deteriorating profitability.

Chart: Profit Margin Comparison Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

This “bloodletting” growth ultimately reflected in cash flow. In 2025, net cash flow from operating activities turned negative, with a full-year outflow of 63.977 million yuan, indicating the core business could no longer generate sufficient cash to sustain daily operations. Tight cash flow makes this IPO seem more like a desperate “lifeline” effort.

Chart: Operating Cash Flow Changes Data Source: Wind, 36Kr Compilation

In summary, as a pioneer, Chuangxiang 3D once defined the first half of the consumer-grade 3D printing industry with cost-performance. But with the advent of creation equality, the industry’s growth logic has shifted from low-price scale expansion to experience upgrades driven by technology and ecosystems.

Tu Zhu’s rise not only eroded Chuangxiang 3D’s market share but also leveled the technological gap with traditional giants. Meanwhile, cross-industry players like Anker and Zhui Mi actively deploying have made the already fierce battlefield even more intense. Although these entrants still lag in technology and products, their strong supply chain and channel advantages are formidable. Under this pressure, Chuangxiang 3D can only respond with heavy investments, sacrificing profits and cash flow to stay in the game.

Deeper challenges lie in the industry’s gray areas, such as community-shared models that lower modeling barriers. Recently, copyright disputes between Tu Zhu and Pop Mart have exposed long-standing issues. As creation equality deepens, if copyright owners initiate large-scale rights enforcement, platform compliance costs will skyrocket. For Chuangxiang 3D, already burdened, this is a Damocles sword hanging overhead.