Robots will perform boxing on the Spring Festival Gala even at a high cost.
The spotlight of the Spring Festival Gala has gathered the expectations of multiple parties. These metal dolls dancing about might cause the stock market's K - line to fluctuate. An investor heavily invested in embodied intelligence concept stocks declared on social media, "If a robot stumbles on the Spring Festival Gala, I'll have no place in the stock market."
At the rehearsal site of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the Year of the Horse at the end of January, humanoid robots from embodied intelligence companies such as Unitree Technology, Galaxy Universal, Magic Atom, and Songyan Power were intensively practicing. Engineers from the R & D group, operation group, motion control group, and perception algorithm group were on standby at all times, not daring to make the slightest mistake. According to Economic Observer, these four companies will perform martial arts, dances, and skits on the Spring Festival Gala stage, with different programs.
The spotlight of the Spring Festival Gala has gathered the expectations of multiple parties. These metal dolls dancing about might cause the stock market's K - line to fluctuate. An investor heavily invested in embodied intelligence concept stocks declared on social media, "If a robot stumbles on the Spring Festival Gala, I'll have no place in the stock market."
The leading roles on the stage are changing.
In the past decade, the Spring Festival Gala was a battleground for Internet giants, a carnival where WeChat, Alibaba, Douyin, and Kuaishou exchanged billions - level red envelopes for traffic. This year, while Internet giants like Alibaba and JD.com are examining the input - output ratio, robot companies such as Unitree Technology and Galaxy Universal are "storming the beach" in groups and taking over as the new leading sponsors on the Spring Festival Gala list.
The change of the C - position (center position) on the Spring Festival Gala stage not only reflects the changing trend of the technology industry but also exposes the eagerness of embodied intelligence companies on the verge of industry reshuffle to prove themselves to capital and the B - end market.
Robots Take the C - Position
Among the robot companies officially announced for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the Year of the Horse, there are 4 humanoid robot companies, 1 mobility robot company, and 2 cleaning robot companies.
These humanoid robots are presented under different names. Galaxy Universal emphasizes the "embodied large - model", Magic Atom focuses on "intelligent robots", and Unitree Technology is the "robot partner of the Spring Festival Gala", etc.
The differences in these qualifiers may be related to the product features each company wants to highlight. A person familiar with the matter close to the sponsors told Economic Observer that Galaxy Universal aims to highlight its brain algorithms; Magic Atom emphasizes full - stack self - research, wanting to cover both software and hardware, so it's called "intelligent robots"; while Unitree Technology has participated in the Spring Festival Gala three times and prefers to emphasize the concept of Spring Festival Gala robots.
Companies are trying to establish a differentiated perception in the minds of audiences and investors through these titles.
Except for Unitree Technology, the other companies are making their debut on the Spring Festival Gala. In 2025, Unitree Technology's "Yang BOT" in cooperation with Zhang Yimou became a hit, which was one of the driving forces behind the robot sponsorship boom for the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse.
Before the official broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala, it's difficult for the outside world to know the specific performance forms of the robots. A person from an investment institution that has invested in multiple embodied intelligence companies such as Unitree Technology revealed to Economic Observer that as early as several months ago, the above - mentioned 4 invested companies had confirmed their appearance on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Before entering the external publicity stage, the sponsorship information and related technical docking matters were highly confidential.
"Technical docking and implementation should start at least two or three months in advance," an Internet company employee who participated in the Spring Festival Gala projects of Alipay and Taobao told Economic Observer. Different from simply naming the Spring Festival Gala, once a company becomes the exclusive interactive platform for the Spring Festival Gala, a special project team will be established within the company, which is a highly confidential project both internally and externally, and participants need to sign a confidentiality agreement.
He revealed that after Alipay won the exclusive interactive platform for the 2016 CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the Year of the Monkey, whether it was the "Gathering Five Blessings" or the red - envelope interaction form, it required manpower to conduct closed - door development with relevant technical personnel from the CCTV Spring Festival Gala project team.
The aforementioned person familiar with the matter close to the sponsors explained that for embodied intelligence companies, the value of the Spring Festival Gala doesn't lie in getting ordinary viewers in front of the TV to order a humanoid robot worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. Instead, it lies in verifying the product capabilities through the Spring Festival Gala stage, letting more capital parties see their products, seeking policy support from the government, demonstrating delivery capabilities to B - end customers, and then attracting more domestic and foreign talents.
Zhang Yu, the founding partner of Qingzhi Capital, has invested in multiple humanoid robot companies, including Songyan Power. Zhang Yu fully supports the invested companies to participate in the Spring Festival Gala, mainly for three reasons: First, 2026 is the reshuffle year for humanoid robots, and only a few will remain in the end. Robot companies should appear on any stage where they can showcase themselves, and the Spring Festival Gala is one of the most suitable occasions. Second, currently, the listing channels for humanoid robot companies are still being explored, and the industry is discussing how to attract more investors. If an embodied intelligence company can demonstrate its capabilities on the Spring Festival Gala and bring confidence to investors, it is expected to obtain policy support. When the company conducts its next round of financing, investors will consider investing first. Third, currently, humanoid robots are mainly used in a few scenarios such as performances and education, and there isn't much difference in functions. The Spring Festival Gala may arouse the purchase intention of a wider range of audiences.
A senior executive from a large company who participated in the entire bidding process of the Spring Festival Gala project revealed that before the CCTV Spring Festival Gala project enters the bidding stage, institutions such as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala program team and the CCTV General Manager's Office, which is responsible for the overall operation and industrial development of the station, will visit a number of technology companies to promote and road - show the value of the Spring Festival Gala.
"They will understand the intentions of each company and listen to the demands of some enterprises. For example, if an enterprise wants to promote technology or products, CCTV will collect this information and then feedback it to the station," said the senior executive of the large company. Then, the CCTV General Manager's Office will set up relevant names for Spring Festival Gala sponsorship advertisements based on the enterprises' budget expectations, rather than deciding the sponsors through a single bid.
Ants Take Over from Elephants
A listed embodied intelligence company is reluctant to spend a large sum of money on Spring Festival Gala sponsorship. As a listed company, they currently focus more on the application and implementation in real scenarios. They need to be responsible for investors with every penny they spend, and the existing funds will be more used for R & D investment.
Getting a few seconds or minutes of exposure on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala is an expensive form of publicity, especially for embodied intelligence companies whose commercialization has not yet been successful.
According to IDC data, the total global revenue of the humanoid robot market in 2025 is only expected to be 440 million US dollars (about 3.15 billion yuan). Even for industry leaders such as Unitree Technology and Zhiyuan Robotics, their annual sales revenue in 2024 and 2025 has just exceeded 1 billion yuan. However, their predecessors on the Spring Festival Gala stage - JD.com, Tencent, and Alibaba - have quarterly revenues in the tens of billions.
In the past 10 years, except for 2023 when there was no sponsor, the Spring Festival Gala has been sponsored by Internet and technology companies every year. The sponsors from 2015 to 2025 were Tencent, Alipay (for 2 consecutive years), Taobao, Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin, JD.com, JD.com, Alibaba Cloud, and Taobao respectively.
Most Internet giants appeared as "exclusive interactive partners of the Spring Festival Gala". Before 2024, the exclusive sponsorship of each year only went to one Internet giant. After 2024, there were more "exclusives", and two or three Internet companies carried this label each year. For example, in 2025, Taobao was the exclusive e - commerce interactive platform for the Spring Festival Gala, Alibaba Cloud was the exclusive cloud computing AI partner, Xiaohongshu was the exclusive note - sharing platform, and Bilibili was the exclusive bullet - screen video platform.
In 2026, Volcengine under ByteDance became the "exclusive AI cloud" partner of the Spring Festival Gala and will be deeply involved in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala programs, online interactions, and video live - broadcasts. According to Economic Observer, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili are also expected to appear on the Spring Festival Gala again.
However, the biggest change in the 2026 Spring Festival Gala is that hard - tech companies dominate. As of January 27, a total of 9 sponsors have been officially announced for the Spring Festival Gala. Except for Gujinggong Wine and Yanghe Dream Blue, the rest are hard - tech companies.
Different from Internet companies, hard - tech companies don't have exclusive naming rights.
This is mainly due to the difference in costs. After Internet companies have sponsored the Spring Festival Gala for 10 years, the cost of exclusive sponsorship has been rising. In 2015, Tencent won the bid to be the new - media partner of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala and distributed 500 million yuan in red envelopes. In 2016, Alipay's exclusive sponsorship fee increased by 5 times, and it distributed 800 million yuan in red envelopes. Since then, the cost of companies sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala (including the amount of red envelopes distributed during the Spring Festival Gala) has basically been over 1 billion yuan. Baidu's financial report once disclosed that in the first quarter of 2019, Baidu's total sales, general, and administrative expenses reached 6.1 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 93%, with an increase of 1.6 billion yuan. Baidu was the exclusive sponsor of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala that year.
Compared with the marketing budgets of billions of Internet giants, robot companies are willing to "burn money" to get on the stage. This is a game where ants take over from elephants.
The Magic of the Spring Festival Gala
In the past decade, the Spring Festival Gala has witnessed the rise and fall of China's Internet traffic economy.
The story started in 2015. That year, WeChat Pay distributed 500 million yuan in red envelopes through the "Shake" function during the Spring Festival Gala. Overnight, it achieved the same number of user - bound cards as Alipay had accumulated in 8 years and soon exceeded 100 million. Ma Yun later described it as WeChat's "sneak attack on Pearl Harbor".
Then came Alibaba's three - year counter - attack, followed by the successive appearances of Baidu, Kuaishou, and JD.com.
Ma Huateng once said at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen in 2015, "We lost the bid for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala project. The other side was very aggressive." The "other side" here refers to Alibaba, which became the "exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala" for three consecutive years after that.
At the end of 2018, Luo Zhenyu mentioned the traffic exposure brought by the Spring Festival Gala in his New Year's Eve speech. He was referring to the 2018 Spring Festival Gala. When Alibaba's technical team was preparing for the red - envelope interaction during the Spring Festival Gala, they thought they had done enough preparation and expanded the server's carrying capacity to 3 times that of the "Double 11" peak. However, the actual traffic peak on New Year's Eve exceeded 15 times that of "Double 11", putting the system under pressure.
Unitree Technology's performance of the yangge dance on the 2025 Spring Festival Gala made it an overnight sensation, making hard - tech companies envious. This might also be one of the driving forces for them to participate in the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse in groups. After the Spring Festival Gala, the market popularity of Unitree Technology soared. Some reports said that its "old shares" were once snapped up in the secondary market.
Part of the traffic was converted into sales. Unitree Technology's humanoid robot shipments exceeded 5,500 units in 2025. According to Qichacha data, the number of Unitree Technology's successful bids in 2025 was 2.4 times that in 2024, and it received a lot of attention in the B - end market. At the same time, Unitree completed a new round of financing in 2025 and also announced its listing plan.
"Currently, the humanoid robot market is very competitive, and there are many similar companies. If Company A participates in the Spring Festival Gala while Company B doesn't, Company B may fall behind in the next round," Zhang Yu said. Robot companies also need to evaluate the cost of participating in the Spring Festival Gala. For example, Unitree Technology and Galaxy Universal have raised billions of yuan in financing and can sell thousands of units a year, and their robots are already mature and usable in some scenarios. It is feasible for them to spend money on Spring Festival Gala promotion. However, for some robots that are still in the research stage or only usable in some special scenarios, it's not necessary to pay such a high price.
Seek Traffic, but Also Do the Math
The marginal effect of the Spring Festival Gala is also decreasing. Compared with the enthusiasm of robot companies trying to amaze the audience on the Spring Festival Gala, "deep - pocketed" Internet companies are more cautiously evaluating the ROI (return on investment) of sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala project.
The aforementioned senior executive of the large company admitted that in previous years, many companies found that the effect was not as expected after sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala. Technology companies hope to find an optimal contact point through sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala, analyze whether the Spring Festival Gala audience is consistent with their own user group, and then evaluate the rise and fall of user attention.
Of course, companies don't participate in the Spring Festival Gala solely for selling goods. The senior executive of the large company explained that e - commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo don't directly aim to increase sales GMV during the Spring Festival when advertising on the Spring Festival Gala. After all, the logistics supply is relatively weak during the Spring Festival.
How strong is the traffic - driving effect of the Spring Festival Gala? The senior executive of the large company suggested that companies participating in the Spring Festival Gala sponsorship should lower their expectations: The user conversion or input - output ratio of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala is not as good as people think. After an advertising investment of hundreds of millions or even billions, if it only brings a short - term increase in user activity, it's difficult to convert it into a stable ROI. "Companies' primary choice is to strengthen brand power through the Spring Festival Gala."
The change of the C - position of Spring Festival Gala sponsors from Internet companies to hard - tech companies may be related to the sponsorship effect of the Spring Festival Gala and the bottleneck in new - user expansion.
After 2019, when the Internet entered the second half of the stock competition, the effect of burning money for growth became less and less obvious.
In 2019, Baidu became the exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala. According to the "2019 Spring Festival Big Report" released by QuestMobile, on New Year's Eve, the DAU of Baidu App reached 240 million, a 67.3% increase. After the red - envelope rain ended, the DAU of the App declined, and the retention rate was less than 20%.
Kuaishou sponsored the Spring Festival Gala in 2020, and its daily active user number reached a peak of 282 million at that time. However, after the Spring Festival Gala effect passed, Kuaishou's user number dropped back to 250 million, which was about the same as before the Spring Festival Gala. The new - user acquisition effect was not obvious.
JD.com sponsored the Spring Festival Gala in 2022 and 2024. In 2024, JD.com and its partners provided 100 million physical gifts and 3 billion yuan in red envelopes, with the overall investment doubling compared to 2022. However, JD.com's official data showed that during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2024, the interaction volume of users on JD.com exceeded 55.2 billion times, a decline compared to the 69.1 billion times during the 2022 Spring Festival Gala. The "red - envelope rain" is an interactive mode that became popular after Internet companies sponsored the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. An e - commerce platform employee who participated in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala sponsorship project revealed that e - commerce platforms once relied on burning money for subsidies to compete for