The humanoid robot priced at 39,900 yuan has arrived. How soon will the "robot tax" come?

At the 2025 World Robot Conference, Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree Technology, said in a media interview, "In the future, when robots can do as much work as humans, the government can simply tell enterprises that it will levy a tax on each robot produced."

This is not a wild science - fiction scenario. Less than two years ago, humanoid robots were still known to the public as dancing stars on the Spring Festival Gala stage. At that time, the Unitree H1, priced at 650,000 yuan each, was more of a symbol of technological breakthrough as a dancer rather than a worker on the production line.

Now, the price of Unitree R1 has dropped to 39,900 yuan, almost equivalent to the price of an economy - class electric vehicle.

"Automation replacing human labor" is turning from a concept into reality.

Meanwhile, the expectations of the international market are constantly being refreshed. A recent report from Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2050, the global "humanoid robot market" will be worth more than $5 trillion, with the number approaching 1 billion units. This means that in the next few decades, we will witness a technological substitution wave comparable to the Industrial Revolution and the popularization of the Internet.

Against this technological backdrop, if robots can do work like humans in the future, the implementation of a "robot tax" won't be far off. What does this mean for China's manufacturing industry?

01 Price Drop, Release of Technological Dividends

In the past five years, the main players in the automation of China's manufacturing industry were "robotic arms" and "production line transformation". However, since 2024, the popularity of humanoid robots has skyrocketed. The reason is not just the media spotlight, but the obvious and drastic drop in hardware prices.

 • In 2023, the Unitree H1 was priced at 650,000 yuan;

 • In 2024, the price of the G1 dropped to 99,000 yuan;

 • In early 2025, the starting price of the R1 was 39,900 yuan.

Such a significant price drop is rare even in the consumer electronics industry, not to mention the nascent humanoid robot market.

According to the latest data from Tianyancha, from 2023 to now, the number of enterprises registered in the manufacturing of humanoid robots and related components has increased by 45% year - on - year, reaching nearly 1,200. Among them, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shanghai show obvious agglomeration effects, each accounting for more than 40% of the overall market share. This not only reflects the rapid expansion of the industrial chain but also indicates the formation of mass - production manufacturing.

The price drop of humanoid robots is driven by three overlapping effects:

 1. Mass - production manufacturing: As more manufacturers enter the market, the production of humanoid robot components, assembly, and testing are moving towards large - scale production.

 2. Localization of components: High - precision servo motors, sensors, and reducers that were previously dependent on imports are gradually being replaced by domestic supply chains, significantly reducing costs.

 3. Adaptation of domestic AI models: In core areas such as motion control, voice understanding, and visual recognition, domestic large - scale models combined with local computing power enable robots to complete more tasks without expensive cloud - based inference.

Referring to the historical penetration curve of industrial robots, when the price enters the "psychological comfort zone", the industry penetration rate often increases exponentially. The penetration rate of industrial robots in China was only 36 units per 10,000 workers in 2015 and reached 392 units in 2023, achieving in 8 years what Japan and South Korea took 20 years to accomplish.

Compared with industrial robots, humanoid robots have natural advantages in mobility and task flexibility. Once they break through several key application scenarios such as logistics handling, maintenance, and assembly, their growth curve may be steeper than that of industrial robots. The price drop not only means that more enterprises can afford them but also allows R & D companies to collect data through iterations more quickly, form a technological closed - loop, and further promote a positive cycle of performance and cost.

The combination of technological and cost dividends has rapidly pushed the industry from the "concept stage" to the "application explosion stage". At this point, the market is no longer concerned about "whether it can be done" but "how much can be done and how fast". After the release of the price dividend, when will humanoid robots truly enter factories to replace high - risk and high - intensity human jobs?

02 The Critical Point of Application Implementation is Approaching

Humanoid robots have been very popular in the past two years, but they haven't really started large - scale "work". What we see in videos and exhibitions are mostly performances and demonstrations. This is due to both audience preferences and the fact that in actual production environments, there are still three major obstacles to the replacement of human labor by humanoid robots: task complexity, operational stability, and return - on - investment cycle.

In the past two years, the industry's judgment on the implementation rhythm has accelerated significantly. On the one hand, technological breakthroughs are shortening the debugging cycle. Take logistics handling as an example. Traditional industrial robots need to preset trajectories for each workstation, while humanoid robots can adjust their actions in real - time based on visual and tactile feedback. This means that they can integrate into the existing work environment without large - scale production line transformation.

On the other hand, enterprises' attitudes towards pilot projects are also changing. Products such as Unitree Technology's R1, Tesla's Optimus, and Toyota's T - HR3 have started the "real - scenario" testing phase in industries such as manufacturing, warehousing, and healthcare. Unitree revealed in a media interview that a domestic auto parts factory has put the R1 into material handling and simple assembly, replacing two night - shift workers, and the pay - back period for one robot has been compressed to less than 18 months.

This change in ROI is crucial for enterprise decision - making. In the past, the investment in industrial robots often required a pay - back period of 3 to 5 years. Once humanoid robots can shorten the pay - back period to less than 2 years, the demand will no longer depend on "whether it's worth trying" but will become "how to deploy more as soon as possible".

From the perspective of the competitive landscape, domestic humanoid robot manufacturers are forming two development paths:

 • There are full - stack players like Unitree Technology and Ubtech, which conduct integrated R & D from hardware to AI models, trying to form end - to - end product barriers.

 • There are also modular suppliers like Deep Robotics and Hesai Technology, which focus on single - point areas such as sensors and actuators and enter the supply chains of multiple complete - machine manufacturers at a lower cost.

This division of labor accelerates the maturity of products in the industry and reduces the trial - and - error costs of individual enterprises. Just like the smartphone industry in 2010, once the cost and performance of components are standardized, product iteration will enter the fast lane, and application scenarios will expand explosively in a short period.

Therefore, the real critical point is not the technology itself but when multiple enterprises in multiple industries achieve positive ROI in pilot projects and the supply chain can meet the demand for large - scale production, the market will transform from a "concept" to a "rigid need" in a very short time.

The first round of reshuffle in the industry may occur in mass - production capacity and channel layout rather than in the laboratory. Manufacturers like Unitree are seizing the market with low prices on the one hand and dispersing risks by going global on the other. This means that the future leading humanoid robot manufacturers in China are likely to target the global market first and then meet domestic demand.

03 Once the Critical Point is Broken, Growth Will be Geometric

Morgan Stanley's prediction is just the tip of the iceberg. By 2050, a global humanoid robot market worth $5 trillion means that millions of units will be produced and deployed annually. For manufacturers, the key to victory is not "whether to do it" but who can occupy the high ground in production capacity and supply chain before the explosion.

In the past, when the price of Japanese and South Korean industrial robots dropped below 1.5 times the per - capita GDP, the penetration curve showed an inflection point, and they achieved the transition from "minor trials" to "industry - wide popularization" within 3 to 5 years. In China, from 2016 to 2021, the price of industrial robots dropped by about 30%, and the shipment volume increased nearly threefold. Once the price continues to drop, the incremental market in China will react even faster than in Japan and South Korea.

Therefore, referring to the development path of industrial robots, the acceleration conditions for the humanoid robot market are more sensitive. Humanoid robots have high cross - industry portability. For the same robot, switching between different vertical fields only requires replacing the task algorithm and end - tools, which will significantly reduce expansion costs. At the same time, the iteration speed of AI and the upgrade of embodied intelligence models are not restricted by hardware like mechanical transformation but rely more on computing power and algorithm optimization, which means that the performance improvement speed may be close to that of consumer - grade electronic products.

Currently, the annual production capacity of leading domestic humanoid robot manufacturers is still in the tens of thousands. However, driven by the capital market and complete - machine manufacturers, it is expected that the total industry production capacity will exceed one million units before 2027. By then, even if calculated based on low - end models priced at 30,000 yuan each, the market scale will be close to 30 billion yuan, and this is only for the basic models for "physical labor", excluding high - value - added fields such as healthcare, services, and military applications.

More importantly, industry differentiation will become apparent at the early stage of the explosion:

 • Enterprises with full - stack R & D capabilities will lock in high - value - added and complex task scenarios, forming a high - margin range.

 • Manufacturers focusing on low - cost popular robots will compete for market share through scale and channels, following the strategy of small profits but quick turnover.

 • Component and AI model suppliers may become the most profitable part, just like the players in the smartphone industry that make screens, chips, and operating systems.

In this context, the "robot tax" will not only be a policy topic but will become part of the industry's cost structure, forcing enterprises to make more aggressive choices in pricing, deployment rhythm, and global market layout. In other words, the real competition does not take place at the conference but in the supply - chain locking battle before the explosion.

When the price, production capacity, and ROI curves cross the thresholds simultaneously, humanoid robots will penetrate into all industries at a geometric rate, leaving less than two years for latecomers.

Today's price of 39,900 yuan may be the future equivalent of the "10,000 - yuan smartphone" moment. Once the threshold is crossed, what follows is exponential replication, and the "robot tax" may become a daily occurrence in the future.

Disclaimer: This article is based on the company's legally disclosed content and publicly available information, but the author does not guarantee the completeness and timeliness of this information.

Note: The stock market is risky, and investment should be made with caution. This article does not constitute investment advice, and investors should make their own decisions.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Blueberry Finance", written by Blueberry Jun, and is published by 36Kr with permission.