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Industry AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-10

The world's biggest humanoid robot maker goes on sale today — and for the first time anyone can look up what a robot company is worth

The world's biggest humanoid robot maker goes on sale today — and for the first time anyone can look up what a robot company is worth

Unitree Robotics opened public subscription on the Shanghai STAR Market this morning, becoming the first humanoid robot maker to list on China's domestic A-share market. The price was set on 6 August at 150.80 yuan a share, which raises about 6.1 billion yuan (roughly $904 million) from 40.45 million new shares — a tenth of the company — and values the Hangzhou firm at about 61 billion yuan, or a little over $9 billion. That is 219 times earnings. The regulatory run was the fastest in the exchange's history: the filing was accepted on 20 March and cleared by the securities regulator on 2 July, 104 days later. Unitree is unusual among humanoid companies in that it makes money. It shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025 — about a third of the entire world's output that year, which came to roughly 16,580 units — on revenue that quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan at gross margins near 60 per cent. The company, founded by the engineer Wang Xingxing and known first for cheap robot dogs, guided to first-half 2026 revenue of about 1.1 billion yuan, growth of 36 to 45 per cent — strong, but slower than the year before.

Why it mattersUntil today there was no honest way to price a humanoid robot company. Figure, 1X, Apptronik and Tesla's Optimus programme are all valued by private rounds or by analyst guesswork, and the numbers people quote for them are essentially arguments. From tomorrow one of these companies has a share price that changes every day, published by a market with real money on the line — and it happens to be the only one shipping at scale and turning a profit. Every other valuation in the sector now has something to be measured against, which is uncomfortable if you are the no-revenue company with the bigger number. The second thing worth noticing is speed. A hardware company that started building humanoids in 2023 went from five units in its first year to thousands, to a public listing, in under three years, with the regulator clearing it in 104 days. That pace is a policy choice as much as a business one, and it says plainly where Beijing wants capital to go.
#Robotics

✓ Verified · 4 sources

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