The strongest team of hardworking staff at scenic spots during the National Day holiday is here.

A year ago, there was only one lone robot doing the Yangko dance on the Spring Festival Gala stage; a year later, robots of all kinds have flocked to major scenic spots across the country for the National Day holiday, dancing, making coffee, and even busier than many regular office workers. From "one single player taking all the spotlight" to "a hundred schools of thought contending", what on earth has China's robotics industry experienced in this past year? Today we're going to talk about how these "overachievers" have moved step by step from the center of the stage to front-line posts at scenic spots.

Spring Festival Gala:

From "One Robot's Solo Dance" to "Four Teams Sharing the Stage"

When it comes to the rising popularity of robots, the Spring Festival Gala is an unavoidable milestone. At the 2025 Spring Festival Gala, the YangBOT from Unitree Robotics twisted to Yangko rhythms and spun its handkerchief, being the only robot on the entire show. It single-handedly took on the banner of "the first public appearance of humanoid robots", drawing nationwide attention and being a total top-tier viral star.

By the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, the whole vibe changed completely: robots directly formed a "super troupe" to debut. Four brands, Songyan, Unitree, Magic Atom, and Galaxy Universal, appeared on the stage together, with the media calling it "the Spring Festival Gala with the highest robot density in history".

Unitree brought its G1 and H2 models to perform the Wushu show *WuBOT*, pulling off backflips, vaults, and nunchuck tricks. It could even perform a "drunken fist" routine, get back up on its own after collapsing as if inebriated, and engage in "human-vs-robot sparring" with performers from the Tagou Wushu School. This is its third time appearing at the Spring Festival Gala, making it a veritable "regular fixture" of the show.

Songyan Dynamics went even further, directly integrating robots into a comedy skit. Its N2, E1, and Xiaobumi robots, plus a bionic "fake grandma", starred alongside Cai Ming in the skit *Grandma's Favorite*. The "robot grandchild" leaned into Cai Ming's arms and acted coquettishly, to the point that the audience could not tell the real human from the robot at all. This marks the very first time a humanoid robot has been featured in a Spring Festival Gala skit, and Songyan also won the title of "Exclusive Partner for Bionic Humanoid Robots".

Magic Atom's MagicBot Z1 performed stunts on stage alongside Jackson Yee, while over a hundred quadruped robot dogs dressed as "pandas" danced at the Yibin sub-venue. Galaxy Universal, meanwhile, quietly cleaned up broken cups and picked up grilled sausages in the microfilm featuring Shen Teng and Ma Li, looking just like a "great kid" who comes home to help with the chores.

In just one year, from working alone to performing as a group, this trend signals that the entire industry has moved from "individual breakthroughs" to "comprehensive flourishing". When they step down from the Spring Festival Gala stage, they are greeted by a more rigorous test during the National Day holiday.

National Day Holiday:

Robots Enter the Public Domain En Masse, Scenic Spots Become Training Grounds

This National Day holiday, robots have fully "stepped down from the altar", moving from stages to scenic spots. Hundreds of robots across dozens of cities nationwide were put to work, each busier than the last.

Chimelong Spaceship Park in Zhuhai is the most extreme case, deploying more than 300 robots in one go for tour guiding, playing table tennis with visitors, running retail services, and working as hotel front desk staff. Operating nonstop all day, they are known as the "strongest working robot troupe" at the scenic spot, and it is currently the largest normalized robot operation project in China.

The Canton Tower brought in Unitree's humanoid robots and robot dogs to perform formation dances and acrobatic backflips during parades that went viral across short video platforms, making them absolute "traffic superstars". At the Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan, and Badaling Great Wall in Beijing, Galaxy Universal's unmanned retail robots were launched to greet visitors, recommend products, collect payments, and hand over goods on their own, providing one-stop services at nearly 200 locations nationwide.

CrossVerse Intelligence went even further, sending its W1 Pro robots to scenic spots in more than 30 cities to make coffee, ice cream, and popcorn on site, acting as veritable "mobile convenience stores". At West Lake in Hangzhou, traffic management robots were deployed to stand guard at intersections, answering directions, dissuading unsafe behaviors, and broadcasting anti-fraud reminders, becoming the "best partner" for traffic police. In addition, there are humanoid shop assistants at Grand Tang Mall in Xi'an, robot dog lion dance performances at Fuxing Island in Shanghai, and robot face-changing shows at Eastern Suburb Memory in Chengdu, while Kunming even held a stage show featuring dozens of robots.

Apart from scenic spots, robots also stayed busy at competition venues. This National Day holiday, robots not only "worked" at scenic spots, but also flocked to competition arenas. From October 4 to 5, the 26th season of the Robotex World Robotics Championship Asia Finals kicked off at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) Qingpu Venue, gathering over 8,000 contestants, 29 competition events, more than 300 exhibitors, and over 200 industry experts. The event covers all age groups, from 4-year-old kids starting out with Lego to university students, with dozens of events including off-road rally, FPV drone racing, robot sumo, and embodied intelligence dual-guard competitions, filling the venue with parents and onlookers.

Pricing:

From "Unaffordable Luxury" to "Bargain Price", Robots Now Cover All Market Segments

In terms of pricing, the speed of change is unprecedented. A few years ago, a full-size humanoid robot often cost over 300,000 yuan, out of reach for ordinary consumers. By 2026, prices have dropped significantly, with products positioned for different tiers of the market.

Products in the ten-thousand-yuan range focus on "toy-like" functions, prioritizing performance and education. Songyan's Xiaobumi is priced at 9,998 yuan, released in October 2025 and delivered in March 2026. It is the world's first humanoid robot priced under 10,000 yuan, capable of singing and dancing, but without functional limbs for labor. Unitree's R1 starts at 29,900 yuan, with spot deliveries starting in June 2026. Qiyuan's Q1 is even more aggressive, with a starting price of 19,900 yuan and direct spot shipments starting on October 1, 2026.

Products in the hundred-thousand-yuan range are the "workers", the main models that are actually deployed for labor in factories. The Lite version of the Agibot X2 is priced at 98,000 yuan, with mass deliveries starting in December 2025, making it the most widely used model in 3C production line assembly applications in China. Fourier Intelligence's GR-3 is priced at 115,000 yuan, delivered in October 2025. Unitree's G1 starts at 85,000 yuan, with stable supply ever since.

Products priced at hundreds of thousands of yuan are the "premium luxury models", targeted at high-end exhibition scenarios. Among UBTECH's U1 series, the Lite version costs 119,800 yuan, the Pro version 169,800 yuan, and the Ultra version is priced between 880,000 and 990,000 yuan. This series was released in June 2026, with the first batch of deliveries on September 16. The flagship version of Matrix Intelligent's MATRIX-3 is priced at 580,000 yuan, and the PRO version at 680,000 yuan, released in May 2026 with small-batch deliveries in the third quarter. It is reported that most of its team members are former Tesla employees.

The reason why prices have dropped so rapidly is the cost reduction brought by the localization of core components and large-scale mass production. It is worth noting that the listed price is not the final transaction price: there is room for negotiation for large corporate procurement and scientific research bidding, and high-end customized models usually have long delivery waiting periods.

Market:

Who is reaping the profits?

Despite robots being showcased everywhere nowadays, the actual paying customers are almost all B2B enterprises, with very few individual consumers purchasing humanoid robots. The current market structure is very clear: the largest buyers are universities and scientific research institutes, who mainly use robots for algorithm R&D and academic research. At the same time, scenic spots, shopping malls, and cultural tourism operators use robots to attract visitors and hold events, which is exactly what happened during this National Day holiday. In addition, electronics and automobile manufacturers use robots for production line testing. The share of C-end individual retail is less than 5%, mostly limited to tech enthusiasts who want to try out new gadgets.

According to data from CCID, by 2025 China's humanoid robot OEMs will exceed 140, with domestic shipments reaching about 14,400 units, accounting for 84.7% of the global total (per CCID's statistics). Data from GGII (High-tech Robot Industry Research Institute) shows that shipments are about 18,000 units, a 650% increase from 2024. Globally, IDC predicts that 2025 global shipments will be close to 18,000 units, a 508% year-on-year increase, with total sales of about 440 million US dollars. Among all brands, Agibot ranks first globally with 5,200 units shipped, and Unitree takes the lead in market share.

The figures for total market size are even more varied, with statistics from different institutions differing by several orders of magnitude. CCID states that China's humanoid robot market size will reach 15.5 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for 53.8% of the global total. The China Industry Research Institute, using a broad statistical scope, puts the embodied intelligence market size at 9.15 trillion yuan, a 20.4% year-on-year increase. Lede and other institutions claim that the humanoid robot market size can reach 82.39 billion yuan. It is important to note that "humanoid robots" refer to robots with a human-like appearance, while "embodied intelligence" refers to the entire ecosystem of intelligent agents that can perform tasks, so the two concepts should not be confused.

Orders:

Payments have been received, but deliveries are queued up

In the past two years, orders for humanoid robots have kept coming in, which seems very encouraging, but we still need to stay rational. Most of these orders are framework agreements to be fulfilled in batches over 2 to 3 years, not immediate cash-and-carry transactions.

In April 2025, the 5.8 billion yuan super bulk procurement by State Grid Corporation of China was the largest tender in the industry, purchasing more than 8,000 units of quadruped robot dogs, live-line operation humanoid robots, and dual-arm inspection robots. Agibot, UBTECH, Unitree, Fourier Intelligence, and Deep Robotics all won the bids, directly pushing the power special robot industry onto the fast track of commercialization.

In July 2025, the 124 million yuan bulk procurement by China Mobile was finalized, with Agibot winning 78 million yuan worth of orders and Unitree winning 46.05 million yuan. This marks the first time a telecom operator has placed a 100-million-yuan level order for robots.

In November 2025, the industrial humanoid robot order between Agibot and Longcheer Technology was officially announced, covering nearly 1,000 units with a total value of hundreds of millions of yuan, to be directly deployed in 3C production lines. This is a large order that truly lands on factory floors, far more valuable than orders for "setting up stalls at scenic spots".

In January 2026, Galaxy Universal's 700 million-yuan framework order for 1,000 humanoid robots was announced, covering 1,000 units of Galbot G1 for industrial flexible operations and smart retail scenarios.

On June 30, 2026, UBTECH announced that it had locked in a total of 13,361 orders for its U1 series. Coupled with its earlier Walker industrial robot orders, the total value of its framework agreements exceeds 430 million yuan, and it also won a 30 million-yuan order from Tianqi Co., Ltd.

In December 2025, Songyan officially announced that its Xiaobumi robot had received an order for 1,000 units from Huichen Co., Ltd., making it the "sales champion" among 10,000-yuan level robots.

If we rank orders by value, the order of priority is clearly: industrial production line orders > power grid and telecom operator bulk procurement orders > cultural tourism leasing orders > scientific research prototype orders. At present, most of the 100-million-yuan level orders are still in the nature of scientific research and cultural tourism pilots, with very few having been deployed on a large scale in factories. Many framework agreements still depend on actual performance: if the on-site test results do not meet requirements, the purchaser has the right to reduce the order volume. Therefore, there is often a gap between the publicized figures and the actual amount of funds received.

The prosperity is real, but the road ahead is still long

From one single robot on the Spring Festival Gala stage to four teams performing together, and then to hundreds of robots active across scenic spots during the National Day holiday, China's robotics industry has maximized its public visibility over the past year, and is now striving to move towards the goal of being truly needed. The Spring Festival Gala solved the public awareness problem, letting audiences across the country realize for the first time that "robots can be so capable". The National Day holiday provided a training ground, allowing hundreds of robots to conduct actual combat drills in real high-foot-traffic environments.

Behind all the bustle, three clear signals have emerged. On the product side, 10,000-yuan level robots have lowered the access threshold, 100,000-yuan level robots have become the main force, and product tiering has become increasingly mature. On the order side, 100-million-yuan level orders from national institutions, telecom operators, and manufacturing enterprises have landed one after another, proving that the commercial operation logic has been initially verified. On the scenario side, cultural tourism has become the largest practical training base, accumulating experience for robots to enter factories in the future.

However, we should not overstate the current progress. Robots are still in the "scenario verification period", and there are still many hurdles to cross before large-scale replacement of human labor, including improvements in stability, operation precision, and cost-effectiveness. The viral success at the Spring Festival Gala is just a starting point, and the busy deployment during the National Day holiday is just a prelude. In the next two years, as orders are delivered one after another, costs continue to drop, and algorithms become increasingly optimized, these robots will eventually move from being "internet-famous attractions at scenic spots" and "Spring Festival Gala stars" to factories and all walks of life. That will be the moment when the whole industry truly achieves vigorous, all-round development.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Rongzhong Finance" (ID: thecapital), written by Dai Xianchao, edited by Wu Ren, and republished with authorization from 36Kr.