Morgan Stanley: 62% of Chinese companies may adopt humanoid robots within three years

A Morgan Stanley survey shows that 62% of Chinese enterprises may adopt humanoid robots within the next three years, but the current technology is not yet mature, and the product satisfaction rate is only 23%.

According to the latest survey by Morgan Stanley's AlphaWise research team, Chinese enterprises seem to have an extremely high willingness to adopt humanoid robots, although such robots are still far from mature in commercial applications at present.

Zhong Sheng, an equity analyst of Morgan Stanley's Asia research team, said in the report that the company found that as many as "62% of the respondents may adopt humanoid robots within the next three years," which is both strong and somewhat unexpected.

However, the Morgan Stanley report also mentioned that there is still a long way to go for humanoid robot technology because "the products are not yet mature," and only 23% of the respondents "are satisfied with the current products."

The Morgan Stanley survey shows that Chinese corporate executives pointed out that humanoid robots still have deficiencies in operational flexibility, functionality, and price.

Moreover, cost is also a major obstacle because "92% of the respondents" said that large-scale promotion of robots is only possible if the selling price is below "200,000 RMB."

According to this survey, "Unitree Robotics is the most concerned brand, followed by Deep Robotics, Ubtech, and Midea."

However, most corporate executives are still in a wait-and-see state regarding humanoid robots. The report points out that "only about 10% of the respondents are currently evaluating or launching pilot projects."

Even so, the expectation that robots will replace the long-term labor force is still quite strong. The survey shows that the respondents said that "11% and 28% of jobs may be replaced by robots in the next 5 and 10 years respectively."

Morgan Stanley analysts also added that the data of a 62% adoption possibility "may be a bit too optimistic" because the samples they surveyed mainly came from large enterprises that have already used robot technology.

However, these findings still strengthen Morgan Stanley's positive view of the humanoid robot industry. The analysts wrote that this survey "enhances our long-term positive view of humanoid robots" and at the same time reminded that it will take time to increase production capacity.

Morgan Stanley analysts also pointed out that the launch of new models in the future, government subsidies, and potential initial public offerings (IPOs) may all make this theme continue to occupy an important position in market investment in 2026, and component companies will be the first beneficiaries, including companies such as Inovance Technology, Green Harmonic, Hesai Technology, and Hengli Hydraulics.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily." Author: Liu Rui. Republished by 36Kr with permission.