Morgan Stanley Recommends Three Humanoid Robot Component Stocks as Musk's Optimus Bet Accelerates Demand
Taylor Wilson
Morgan Stanley has doubled its 2025 China humanoid-robot sales forecast to 28,000 units and named three component suppliers as the first beneficiaries — Tesla's decision to halt two EV models and convert a California plant to Optimus production is pulling the entire supply-chain timeline forward.
Why does Morgan Stanley say "parts makers profit before the robot makers"?
The bank's Jan 21 report states a core view: component suppliers will be the first to benefit from the industry's early growth.
The logic is straightforward — major manufacturers are mass-producing robots internally for training and validation, so output volumes far exceed external sales.
This means → even before finished robots sell at scale, parts orders are already flowing — suppliers enter the volume ramp earlier than the robot assemblers themselves.
A doubled sales forecast — what does the number really say?
Morgan Stanley raised its 2025 China humanoid-robot sales estimate from 14,000 to 28,000 units, a full doubling from its December projection.
In plain terms = this is not a modest tweak — the entire demand curve has been redrawn.
This reflects Tesla's decision to halt EV production and pivot to Optimus, which has fundamentally shifted the market's view of the humanoid-robot rollout timeline.
Three picks — what slot does each one fill?
Leaderdrive (Shanghai-listed): guided 2025 net profit to at least RMB 58.8 million (~$8.5 m), more than double year-on-year. Morgan Stanley projects its robot-revenue share rising from 15% in 2025 → 25% in 2026 → 30% in 2027. The stock jumped over 7.5% the day the news broke.
Inovance Technology (Shenzhen-listed): robot revenue is still a small share today, but the company is developing ball screws and linear actuators purpose-built for humanoid robots. Morgan Stanley expects robots using a "linear + rotary" drivetrain — including Tesla Optimus and Xpeng Iron — to launch in 2026–2027; linear actuators should gain share because of their lower cost.
Hengli Hydraulic (Shanghai-listed): a ball-screw specialist — ball screws are precision components that convert rotary motion into linear motion. Morgan Stanley estimates humanoid-robot business already accounts for 1% of revenue this year, rising to 2% next year.
The sector has already rallied hard — is there still room?
The Wind index tracking 110 Chinese robot-component companies has climbed nearly 48% over the past 12 months, far outpacing the CSI 300's roughly 25% gain.
Morgan Stanley explicitly calls Optimus progress the core driver of the sector's run — delays to Optimus have triggered visible pullbacks in these stocks.
This means → the sector's pricing is tightly tethered to Musk's timeline: he has pledged to sell Optimus to the public by end-2027 and eventually produce one million units a year. Whether that deadline holds will be the make-or-break test of the parts-supplier growth thesis.
Where is the biggest uncertainty?
Humanoid robotics as a whole is still in its early stage: no clear regulatory framework for public deployment, and it remains uncertain which robot assemblers will ultimately survive.
In plain terms = the parts-supplier thesis is "whoever wins still has to buy my screws" — but if the whole industry's pace lags expectations, the order ceiling gets compressed across the board.
Musk's timeline is the market's single biggest anchor of conviction — and its single biggest point of risk.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.