Status quo of intraoral scanner companies-3

Shining3D: Focused on CADCAM solutions around intraoral scanner

Shining's successful experience with the lab scanner brought valuable insights into cost-effectiveness and differentiation to their team. The Aoralscan2, however, proved to be a failed product. Since the release of Aoralscan3 in September 2021, they have gradually gained market traction and become a mainstream player.

From the perspective of meeting dentists' needs and fitting their budget, Aoralscan3 is performing well. Its all-in-one touch cart, compact scanner size, aesthetic design, and smooth scanning experience cater to mainstream market demands. More importantly, they seized the market opportunity for a mainstream intraoral scanner priced at 10,000 USD, when most other mainstream intraoral scanners are priced above 12,000 USD for end users.

After MBK Partners acquired Medit Corp in December 2022, Medit underwent a challenging acquisition integration year in 2023. During this period, Shining3D capitalized on the market vacancy and gained additional market share. Besides the release of the new wireless Aoralscan3, distinctive patient engagement features such as clinic report and integrations with their facial scanner and 3D printer also helped them attract more users from cosmetic dentistry and same-day dentistry.

While Shining has achieved strong growth in recent years, for further development, they have to resolve some fundamental technical issues, including raw data quality, self-developed optical engine, bite scan, edentulous scanning, and software integrations with third parties…

Medit: The “Lame” Intraoral Scanner

Medit had a prosperous period from 2018 to 2022. This exciting journey commenced in 2018 when they launched the i500 mid-year, becoming the first intraoral scanner priced within $20,000 and easy to use.

Apart from effective marketing, what truly distinguishes Medit's scanners from others are their CAD features, they are the first intraoral scanner manufacturer that integrate a lot of CAD features in scanner software. While their scanning performance might be mediocre, it's the Medit Link that gained popularity. Medit Link serves as an excellent platform for clinic-lab communication, featuring an app store with various integrated apps allowing dentists to delve deeper into digital dentistry. Medit's design software modules and CADCAM workflow integration make it a suitable choice for same-day dentistry.

However, over-marketing Medit Link and CAD design features without enhancing the core scanning performance has rendered Medit's scanner lame, leading to swift encounters with bottlenecks. It is said there is a 50% decline in their global performance last year. The reasons are evident:

1.???? The embarrassment of over-marketing, resulting in a decline in reputation.

2.???? The newly released i700 wireless and Medit i900 products lack competitiveness.

3.???? An increasing number of dentists are encountering scanning issues with Medit's intraoral scanner, such as edentulous scanning, smooth intraoral scanning problems, scanner cable issues, software bugs, and overengineered software.

4.???? Besides some simple design features like splint and crown design, most apps on Medit Link have low usage rates. Dentists don't have the time to use them and have paid extra for them.

5.???? Moreover, understocking and low gross margins, coupled with poor multi-channel management, have prompted dealers to abandon Medit and switch to other IOS brands such as 3Shape, Alliedstar, and Shining3D.

Based on recent Medit activities, such as the Medit i900 launch event and the Medit Clinic CAD, it appears that Medit aims to compete with 3Shape by enhancing its software capabilities in patient engagement and design modules (Medit Link vs. 3Shape Unite, Medit Clinic CAD vs. 3Shape Design Studio). However, without a solid foundation in scanning performance and a competitive wireless scanner, can they truly compete with 3Shape's Trios series?

Dexis: Lack of Innovation for too long

After acquiring Carestream Dental's Intraoral Scanner Business in April 2022, Dexis, the imaging business unit of the Envista group, rebranded Carestream Dental's intraoral scanners as Dexis scanners, transitioning from CS3600 to IS3600, CS3700 to IS3700, and CS3800 to IS3800W. However, despite these changes, the decline of the Carestream dental business unit since 2019 has not been slowed down. While the Dexis team is strong, the product itself lacks competitiveness, and the core issue remains: their research and development capabilities are weak.

As a result, we have not seen Dexis achieve significant improvements in scanning performance since 2019, nor have we seen any notable innovations in their scanners’ software, just iterative improvements such as the wired version IS3800, all-in-one touch cart, and IS Connect. Although Dexis has remained competitive in the market due to Envista group's support with solutions like Spark clear aligners, Dexis CBCT, and Nobel Biocare implants, in the long run, if they continue to suffer from weak research and development capabilities, the decline in sales may accelerate.

To be competitive, Dexis needs to address the issues related to scanning fps, imaging overlap correction, complicated scan software, implant scanning, edentulous scanning, and accuracy shift that were inherited from Carestream Dental's intraoral scanners.