New Engine for High-End Manufacturing: The Development Prospect of Metal Injection Molding (MIM)

Amid the wave of upgrading high-end manufacturing toward precision, lightweight design and high efficiency, Metal Injection Molding (MIM)—a near-net-shape forming process that integrates the flexibility of plastic injection molding and the high performance of powder metallurgy—is breaking through the bottlenecks of traditional manufacturing. Emerging as a core new engine driving industrial iteration, MIM boasts broad and promising prospects, precisely aligning with the development demands of global high-end manufacturing.

The core advantages of MIM technology have established its pivotal position in high-end manufacturing. Compared with traditional metalworking processes, MIM enables batch production of small-sized, complex and precision metal components with high design freedom. Its material utilization rate is nearly 100%, cutting costs by 25%–65% compared with conventional processes, while the mechanical properties of finished products are comparable to those of components processed from solid materials. At present, China has become the world’s largest MIM market and supplier, accounting for over 40% of the global market share. The market size reached 9.5 billion yuan in 2023 and is projected to grow to 10.85 billion yuan in 2024, maintaining a steady growth momentum.

The continuous expansion of downstream applications has injected strong impetus into MIM technology. Consumer electronics once served as the dominant driving force for the industry’s takeoff, with the demand for components such as foldable screen hinges and mobile phone card trays fueling its rapid development. The explosive growth of new energy vehicles has spurred massive demand for precision components, emerging as the most definite growth driver of the industry. Meanwhile, the penetration into emerging fields including medical devices, aerospace and humanoid robots has further broadened its application boundaries. Among these, the MIM component value per unit of humanoid robots—such as reducer gears and dexterous hand joints—can reach several thousand yuan.

Technological innovation and material upgrading are continuously expanding the development space of MIM. Currently, MIM materials are evolving from stainless steel, which dominates the market, toward high-end options such as titanium alloys. Endowed with excellent performance, titanium alloys are expected to become the next-generation core materials. In the meantime, the integration of AI technology into the entire production process has achieved precision improvement; environmentally friendly binders and low-energy-consumption processes are promoting green manufacturing; the localization rate of high-end equipment is rising steadily, gradually breaking dependence on imports and further reducing industry costs.

Although the MIM industry still faces challenges such as reliance on imported high-end metal powders and high technical thresholds, its development potential will be continuously unleashed as the acceleration of localization substitution in high-end manufacturing and the release of demand in emerging fields. In the future, MIM will deeply integrate intelligent and green technologies, achieve breakthroughs in material innovation, process optimization and scenario expansion, continuously empower the upgrading of the high-end manufacturing industry, serve as an important force supporting the high-quality development of China’s manufacturing sector, and write a new chapter in precision forming for high-end manufacturing.