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The global manufacturer is reorganizing sales operations to serve customers worldwide more holistically through its factory-owned and network digital manufacturing operations.

With first-half revenue up a modest 2.2%, Proto Labs Inc. is taking several steps to increase growth among customers who buy its combined suite of digital manufacturing services.

Digital manufacturer Protolabs scores record quarterly sales. Protolabs total revenue grew 7.1% to an all-time high $130.7 million in its fiscal third quarter, president and CEO Robert Bodor said.

Rob Bodor, president and CEO, Protolabs

The company, better known as Protolabs, has reorganized sales operations to serve customers worldwide more holistically through its factory-owned and network digital manufacturing operations, president and CEO Rob Bodor says. He adds that the goal is for Protolabs to drive up customer order volumes for manufacturing of both prototypes and parts used in final production, resulting in increased revenue per customer.

The Protolabs Network has about 250 manufacturers

Protolabs provides several digital manufacturing services that customers can request through its website and its homegrown digital manufacturing platform for quoting, manufacturing analysis and ordering. Through its own factories and the global Protolabs Network of about 250 manufacturers, Protolabs offers services including injection molding, CNC manufacturing, and 3D printing of prototypes and production parts.



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Protolabs’ company-owned digital factories support low-volume molding services for up to 100,000 parts, with volume pricing available. The Protolabs Network provides quotes for 100,000+ parts.

In its fiscal second quarter, the Protolabs Network generated a 22.0% increase in revenue to $24.7 million. That accounted for half of total revenue, which grew 2.8% to $49.08 million.

Overall, the company said it served 22,456 customers in Q2. Revenue per customer increased 7.0% to $5,595.

More Protolabs customers buy multiple services

On a Q2 earnings call, Bodor said the quarter’s higher revenue-per-customer built on the 50% increase over the past 12 months. That refers to the number of customers using the company’s combined manufacturing services for making both prototypes and final parts using in production.

Bodor said Protolabs has also pushed through additional improvements in Q2.

“We’ve improved the efficiency of our AI-enabled pricing algorithms, increased the automation in our digital factories, and managed our costs with volume,” he said on the earnings call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha.

He added that the central purpose of the reorganization of the company’s sales operations “is to really focus us around serving our customer even better than we have in the past and more holistically.”

Protolabs appoints executives in new global organization

For example, Protolabs has eliminated regional general manager roles. It’s replacing regional operations across the U.S. and Europe with a “global operations organization.” The new global organization will offer customers the company’s full manufacturing services for making prototypes and production parts through its factories and the Protolabs Network “in a unified way.” It designed the new approach to induce more customers to handle both their prototype and production part manufacturing through Protolabs.

As part of the reorganization, Mike Kenison has transitioned to a newly created position of head of the Global Operations Organization. Kenison is the former general manager of the Americas at Protolabs. Sean Farrell will take on a new role as leader of the Americas Revenue Organization. Farrell is currently vice president of sales in the Americas. And Pjotr Horowitz will transition from his role to lead the Europe Revenue Organization. He is currently managing director of the Protolabs Network.

Protolabs revenue

For the second quarter ended June 30, Protolabs reported:

  • Protolabs revenue rose 2.8% year over year to $49.08 million.
  • Gross profit increased 6.4% to $56.55 million, for a gross profit margin of 45%, up from 43.4%
  • Net income was $4.54 million, compared to a net loss of $383,000.

For the six months ended June 30, Protolabs reported:

  • Protolabs revenue increased 2.2% to $253.52 million.
  • Net income increased more than fourfold to $9.8 million.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].

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