Unitree Robotics IPO: Humanoid Robot Shipments Surge, but Industrial Deployment Remains in Early Stages
Nashnova编辑部
Unitree Robotics' humanoid shipments jumped from 5 units to over 5,500 in two years, now accounting for half its revenue — yet under 10% of buyers are industrial clients, with universities still the primary market.
Shipments up a hundredfold — where is the money coming from?
Humanoid robot sales rose from 5 units in 2023 to 410 in 2024, then 3,551 in the first three quarters of 2025. Full-year 2025 shipments exceeded 5,500.
Humanoid revenue hit RMB 868 million in 2025, roughly 51% of total operating income — up from about 2% in 2023.
This means → humanoids have overtaken quadruped robots as Unitree's top revenue source. The business center of gravity shifted in just two years.
Who is actually buying these robots?
In the first three quarters of 2025, 73.6% of humanoid revenue came from universities and research institutes. Industrial applications accounted for only about 9%.
By contrast, the more mature quadruped business has a balanced mix — research, commercial, and industrial each exceed 30%.
In plain terms = humanoid robots are still a "lab product." The path quadrupeds already walked — diversifying into factories and commercial use — humanoids have barely started.
How far along are the "brain" and the "cerebellum"?
Unitree splits robot intelligence into two layers: the cerebellum handles motion control (walking, balance); the brain handles cognition (understanding surroundings, planning tasks, acting autonomously).
Model iterations are rapid — the UnifoLM series debuted in March 2026; WVLA 2.0, merging a world model with a VLA architecture (vision-language-action — letting the robot "see, understand, then act"), launched in May; UnifoLM-OminiA-0.3, targeting home care, followed in July.
But chairman Wang Xingxing acknowledged on the roadshow that embodied intelligence remains early-stage. Generalization — performing correctly in unfamiliar environments — is the core bottleneck, and most firms globally are still testing.
What does DeepSeek's involvement signal?
DeepSeek joined the IPO as a strategic investor, subscribing RMB 140.8 million for 2.31% of the strategic tranche.
The two plan to collaborate on general AI, high-performance robots, and AI foundation models.
This means → Unitree is betting the "brain" upgrade on external AI capability. If DeepSeek's large-model strengths can fill the cognition gap, generalization breakthroughs could accelerate.
What is the key test for the valuation thesis?
Shipment growth is striking, but over 70% of revenue comes from research procurement — a segment with a limited ceiling and long repurchase cycles.
Whether humanoids can leap from "selling to university labs" to "deploying at factory scale" is the pivotal checkpoint for Unitree's valuation.
In plain terms = investors need to see not just "how many units shipped" but "who is buying and what for." The speed at which industrial penetration climbs from 9% will determine whether this growth story delivers.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.