The "Order Storm" of Humanoid Robots in July: When UBTECH Sets a New Record with 90.51 Million Orders, Has the Commercialization Inflection Point Really Arrived?
Throughout July, the "national team" of humanoid robots has been landing orders frequently.
After Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology split a 124 million yuan procurement deal from China Mobile, winning 78.5 million yuan for a full - sized bipedal robot project and 46.05 million yuan for small robots and five - fingered dexterous hands respectively, on July 18th, the China Tendering and Bidding Public Service Platform announced that Ubtech Robotics won a 90.5115 million yuan bid for the robot equipment procurement project of Miyi (Shanghai) Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., further breaking the record for the single - largest order amount ever received by a global humanoid robot enterprise.
As a pioneer in the domestic humanoid robot "first echelon" to go public, Ubtech's winning of this bid has once again pushed the hype around "2024 being the year of the humanoid robot" to new heights. On the first trading day after the news was announced, Ubtech's stock price soared nearly 10%, and the sentiment in the sector also rose synchronously.
01
Orders are surging, and production lines are busy!
Ubtech expects to deliver a thousand units this year
In the past two years, Ubtech's orders have been steadily increasing: In 2024, its revenue was 1.305 billion yuan, a 23.7% increase from 1.056 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year.
At the earnings conference in April this year, Zhou Jian, the founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Ubtech, further stated, "This year, Ubtech aims to produce about 1,000 humanoid robots, all of which will be put into real - world customer scenarios to collect more data."
In terms of demand scenarios, most of its orders come from the industrial and educational sectors. This is also reflected in its financial reports. In 2024, 27.8% of its revenue, amounting to 363 million yuan, came from the artificial intelligence education business, a 4.6% increase from the same period of the previous year; the consumer - grade robot and other intelligent hardware business accounted for 36.5%, with an 88.1% increase; the industry - customized robot business contributed 140 million yuan in revenue, a 126.1% increase; and the revenue from logistics intelligent robots and intelligent robot solutions was 322 million yuan, accounting for 24.7%.
In terms of products, in March this year, Ubtech Robotics, in collaboration with the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, launched the 172 - cm full - sized scientific research and educational humanoid robot, Tianggong Xingzhe. It provides a full - sized, high - performance, open - source humanoid robot platform for universities, research institutions, and developers, supporting scientific research and application scenario innovation.
On July 13th, Ubtech officially announced that the number of on - hand orders for Tianggong Xingzhe for the education and scientific research fields has reached 100 units, and it is expected that more than 300 units of Tianggong Xingzhe humanoid robots will be delivered in the education and scientific research fields alone this year.
In the industrial field, Ubtech's industrial humanoid robots Walker S1, Walker S2, and the commercial humanoid robot Walker C are its main large - scale humanoid robot products.
Ubtech has recently "unlocked" the skill of autonomous battery swapping for the new - generation industrial humanoid robot Walker S2. The video released by Ubtech shows that Walker S2 is equipped with the world's first hot - swappable autonomous battery - swapping system for humanoid robots. Without human intervention or shutdown, the robot can complete autonomous battery swapping within 3 minutes.
The core of this technology lies in allowing the robot to autonomously replace the battery without shutting down or human intervention. On the one hand, it avoids task interruption due to charging downtime, enabling the humanoid robot to have continuous operation capabilities. On the other hand, autonomous battery swapping for humanoid robots can reduce human maintenance costs and improve overall production efficiency.
Along with the promotion of the Walker S2 product, Ubtech expects to deliver 500 industrial - grade humanoid robots to the intelligent manufacturing field in 2025.
Facing the accelerating release of bulk orders, Ubtech said, "The company is fully committed to building production lines and expanding production capacity to meet the large - scale demand for humanoid robots in domestic and international markets."
CEO Zhou Jian also anticipates that "in 2025, if all scenarios are successfully implemented, optimistically, the delivery of humanoid robots will reach thousands of units in 2026; and it is expected to reach the level of ten thousand units in 2027."
Obviously, Ubtech's "order matrix" is forming a scale effect. As of now, it has won 74 bids in total (amounting to 246 million yuan), most of which are less than 1 million yuan. The highest single - bid amount has jumped from the previous 72.995 million yuan to nearly 100 million yuan this time.
The continuous record - breaking of single - order amounts essentially proves with real money that the feasibility of the commercialization of the humanoid robot industry is becoming increasingly clear.
02
The order matrix expands further:
Not just government, enterprises, and scientific research
The demand from commercial enterprises is quietly accelerating
Behind this is the increasing demand from terminal commercial enterprises. It is worth emphasizing that at the commercialization inflection point when the industry is moving from 0 to 1, the main supporters have been government, enterprises, and scientific research institutions. However, recently, the demand from commercial enterprises has been quietly emerging, which means further progress in commercialization.
Statistics show that Ubtech has received procurement orders from 25 purchasers, mainly universities, education bureaus, and research institutions, including the "Intelligent Communication Laboratory" construction project of Yunnan Minzu University and the artificial intelligence education project of the Zhongyuan District Education Bureau in Zhengzhou.
The tenderer of this winning bid, Miyi Automotive, was established in 2024 and focuses on automobile exports. According to Qichacha, the shareholders of Miyi Automotive include Shiyan Lin'an Operation and Management Co., Ltd., Shiyan Rongchuang International Trade Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Liangao Exhibition (Group) Co., Ltd., with shareholding ratios of 45%, 35%, and 20% respectively. Among them, Shiyan Rongchuang International Trade Co., Ltd. is a state - owned enterprise. Although it is a typical mixed - ownership enterprise, it is clearly more of a commercial enterprise.
Similarly, in previous procurement projects won by Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology, the purchasers were mainly universities and research institutions. However, recently, commercial enterprises have appeared as purchasers in winning procurement projects.
On July 11th, the China Mobile Procurement and Bidding Network showed that Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology jointly won a bid for the humanoid bipedal robot OEM service procurement project of China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd., with a total budget of 124.05 million yuan (including tax).
Since December 2024, Zhipu Robotics has had 8 bid - winning announcements. Recently, it won a 12.7362 million yuan bid for the procurement project of data collection and demonstration robots at the Zhuhai Embodied Intelligence Application Innovation Center.
Unitree Technology has disclosed 168 bid - winning announcements, with amounts ranging from tens of thousands to millions of yuan. Previously, its winning projects were mainly in education, scientific research, and factory inspection.
The official WeChat account of "Ubtech Robotics" also shows that Ubtech has reached cooperation agreements with many industry leaders such as Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor, Geely Automobile, FAW - Volkswagen Qingdao Branch, Audi FAW, BYD, BAIC New Energy, Foxconn, and SF Express. Its self - developed industrial humanoid robot Walker S series has successfully entered training at many global automobile factories, and it plans to deliver 500 industrial humanoid robots to the intelligent manufacturing industry this year.
In fact, with the rapid development of embodied intelligence, the market is indeed paying more and more attention to future application scenarios.
Orient Securities believes that the logistics handling scenario is likely to be the first to become an application scenario for embodied intelligent robots in various C - end or B - end scenarios.
Ubtech CEO Zhou Jian has also specifically emphasized that humanoid robots will first be widely applied in structured scenarios, such as intelligent manufacturing scenarios, followed by commercial service scenarios, and finally, household scenarios.
03
Ubtech leads the way, and Unitree rushes for IPO
Meituan and JD.com invest heavily
Competing in the capital market depends on strength
From the once "concept hype" to the "industry empowerment" stage, capital is undoubtedly an important "accelerator." Especially after industrial capital collaborating with commercial scenarios has rushed to invest, this accelerating effect has further promoted the new track into the commercialization stage.
Rough statistics show that in just the past three months, Meituan has invested in two embodied intelligence enterprises, Zibianliang and Xinghaitu. Meanwhile, JD.com has also made consecutive investments, including Zhipu Robotics, Qianxun Intelligence, and Zhongqing Robotics.
According to public information, Qianxun Intelligence completed a nearly 600 million yuan Pre - A+ round of financing, led by JD.com, with participation from institutions such as the China Internet Investment Fund, Zhejiang Science and Technology Innovation Mother Fund, Huatai Zijin, and Fosun RZ Capital. The recent A1 - round financing of Zhongqing Robotics was also led by JD.com, with participation from Puquan Capital under CATL, Yintai Group, Fortune Capital, Huakong Fund, and Huangpu River Capital.
Zhipu Robotics announced that it will jointly showcase the world's first truly data - driven embodied intelligent robot for logistics operations with Dematic Technology at the Zhipu Robotics booth at WAIC 2025 on July 27th.
Many people outside the industry joked that the food - delivery competition among "JD, Meituan, and Taobao" is now extending to the field of embodied intelligence.
Whether it is the continuous release of industrial order projects or the arrival of investment tides from big companies, it undoubtedly shows that the conditions for the commercialization of the entire humanoid robot or embodied intelligence are becoming increasingly clear.
Recently, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, publicly stated in Beijing that "China is in a very advantageous position" in the development of humanoid robots, with three major advantages: leading AI technology, top - notch mechatronics capabilities, and the world's largest manufacturing base.
At this time, for many players, seizing the first - mover advantage in the new industry is undoubtedly crucial. It should also be clear that the industry's screening of investment targets is becoming more rational. In the early stage, single factors such as the founder's background may have been more emphasized. At present, investors pay more attention to evaluating the feasibility of a company's commercialization path and its progress in implementation.
For example, Ubtech is a pioneer in the domestic humanoid robot "first echelon" to go public, and its capital strength, technological strength, and scale have been recognized by the market. It is worth looking forward to that at this time when product order projects are emerging one after another, Unitree Technology, which became an internet sensation during the Spring Festival this year with a robot lion dance, has officially launched its A - share IPO, once again pushing the enthusiasm for embodied intelligence enterprises to "race" in the capital market to new heights.
This article is from the WeChat official account "HK Stock Research Club" (ID: ganggushe), author: HK Stock Research Club, published by 36Kr with authorization.