China leverages high-tech manufacturing for global edge

For many families in China and abroad, everyday items such as phone stands, household organizers, small replacement parts and educational models no longer need to be bought from supermarkets or e-commerce platforms. Instead, they are increasingly made at home, enabled by the wider adoption of user-friendly, high-precision 3D printers.

In a lab at Shenzhen Anycubic Technology Co Ltd, rows of 3D printers hum steadily as new models take shape layer by layer, their smooth surfaces and raised details underscoring the machines' precision.

Beyond the lab, the exhibition hall and offices of the Shenzhen, Guangdong province-based company showcase that capability through an array of creatively designed 3D-printed items, from decorative pieces to finely detailed figurines of its own employees.

Chen Zhixing, director of Anycubic's marketing department, said Chinese-made 3D printers have gained strong traction in overseas markets, thanks to their ability to deliver stable, high-quality output of customized products.

"For consumers, the most critical factor in choosing a 3D printer is stability," said Chen. "Print precision and surface fineness come next, followed by time and material efficiency. Our latest model delivers a 50 percent reduction in both printing time and material consumption compared with the previous generation."

With continued improvements in performance and usability, home and desktop 3D printers are being adopted across a growing range of application scenarios globally. Common uses of 3D printing technology include anime and figurine production, jewelry design, educational learning tools, and medical and dental applications, further expanding the market potential for consumer-grade 3D printers.

Not only are large-scale equipment products such as ships, construction machinery and electric vehicles gaining popularity worldwide, but a growing number of Chinese-made consumer electronics and high-value-added industrial products, driven by sustained innovation and rapid product upgrades, are also standing out in overseas markets.

In 2025, China's exports reached 26.99 trillion yuan ($3.88 trillion), up 6.1 percent year-on-year. Exports of high-tech products rose 13.2 percent in value, contributing 2.4 percentage points to overall export growth, data from the General Administration of Customs show.

In addition to the strong growth in exports of high-tech products such as industrial robots, high-end machine tools and aerospace components, shipments of consumer goods — including 3C electronics (computer, communication and consumer electronics), household items, fashion accessories and small home appliances — have emerged as an important driver of export expansion.

Beyond hardware performance, strong modeling ecosystems and software capabilities have notably become key factors behind the overseas popularity of Chinese-made 3D printers.

Chen Bo, co-founder of Shenzhen Elegoo Technology Co Ltd, another Shenzhen-based 3D printer manufacturer with more than 1,000 employees globally, said that more than 90 percent of the company's products are being exported.

"To attract overseas consumers, we have built a comprehensive model library, offering a vast range of downloadable designs for our users," said Chen, adding his company's model library currently contains more than 100,000 designs.

"For an average household user, even if the printer is used throughout its entire lifecycle, they would still not be able to print even one-tenth of the models available in our library," Chen said.

Ranging from toys and decorative items to camera accessories and everyday household products, the model files are frequently downloaded by overseas users, a trend that has in turn driven stronger exports of domestically produced 3D printers, he added.

Elegoo's annual revenue rose from 1.6 billion yuan in 2024 to 2.5 billion yuan in 2025. Its products and services now reach users in more than 150 countries and regions, said Shenzhen Customs.

Rapid technological iteration has been driven by the clustering effect of the industry. Nearly 90 percent of upstream suppliers for consumer-grade 3D printers are located in China's Pearl River Delta region, forming a highly efficient industrial ecosystem, said Cao Pengfei, deputy head of Shenzhen Customs' statistics unit.

The customs official said this clustering has helped create a "two-hour supply chain", significantly reducing logistical costs, shortening delivery times and enhancing the global competitiveness of Chinese-made 3D printer products.

"For the same product, it certainly can be manufactured in the United States, but from procurement to production and final delivery, the cost could run to $2,000 or $3,000," said Chen Bin, deputy director of the expert committee of the Beijing-based China Machinery Industry Federation.

He said that the same product can often be made for less than $1,000 in China. Combined with strong innovation, this cost advantage is making Chinese products increasingly attractive to global consumers.

In 2025, nationwide industrial enterprises above a designated size recorded total profits of 7.39 trillion yuan, up 0.6 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the meantime, profits in the nation's intelligent consumer equipment manufacturing sector rose 48 percent on a yearly basis, said the NBS.

In East China's Jiangsu province, a growing number of businesses are also using independent innovation as a key driver to bring high-value-added products to global markets.

One such company is View Electronic Co Ltd, a liquid crystal display television manufacturer located in Nantong, Jiangsu. Its automated production lines turn out high-refresh-rate quantum dot televisions every 40 seconds, with the products destined for overseas markets.

The Chinese company has secured a top-three market position in Saudi Arabia and is steadily expanding its footprint across Central Asia and North Africa, as its strategy of "going global through brands and technology" gains momentum.

Wang Songbai, head of View Electronic's sales unit, said the company has made technological innovation its core approach to precisely meet customer needs.

"For the Middle East's strong lighting conditions at homes and public spaces, we independently developed an anti-glare screen coating, while customized artificial intelligence-powered night eye-care models were designed to align with local user habits," Wang said.

He noted that the company launched more than 10 mid — to high-end products last year, including its latest 98-inch quantum dot TV, which features wider color-gamut coverage and has proven particularly popular with sports fans.

The Chinese TV maker's annual exports rose to 420 million yuan in 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of over 15 percent, with high-end large-screen products measuring 80 inches and above accounting for more than 10 percent of its total export value, according to Nanjing Customs.

Denis Depoux, global managing director of management consultancy Roland Berger, said Chinese companies have built differentiated advantages with global competitiveness in areas such as "China speed", supply chain resilience, cost efficiency, engineering talent and continuously strengthened innovation capabilities.

New technologies such as electrification, automation and AI transformation will continue to reshape their product architecture and industrial ecosystems, opening up fresh growth opportunities, he said.