Benmo Technology has not yet secured a share of the lucrative embodied intelligence market.

Instead of digging for gold, it is wiser to act as the shovel seller. In the wave of embodied intelligence, this business model is increasingly favored by capital.

On September 29, Benmo Technology, a manufacturer of robot joint modules, was successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As of October 10, its share price has been rising all the way, with a market value of about HK$11.531 billion and a price-to-sales ratio of nearly 30 times.

The high market value is built on the vision of Benmo Technology. Its founder Zhang Di said: "Direct drive will definitely drive the world, and reducers will inevitably fade out of the market", adding that the company is "creating a new industry for the embodied intelligence field".

Benmo Technology is the leading domestic manufacturer of direct drive power modules for consumer robots, with a market share of over 60% in the segmented track, and ranks among the top in China in the segmented market of wheel-legged robots.

However, in-depth analysis shows that the core direct drive power module products of Benmo Technology are mainly applied to sweeping robots. The combined revenue from embodied joint modules and complete robot business is only 14.1 million yuan, accounting for only 5% of the total revenue, which is far from the embodied intelligence story depicted in its prospectus.

As a result, a strange situation has emerged: even as the leader in the segmented market, Benmo Technology was still in a loss-making state by the end of 2025.

Revenue Relies on Sweeping Robots, 61% Market Share Yet No Profit

"Maybe one day, we can drive the world directly." Before founding Benmo Technology, founder Zhang Di had already embraced this vision.

Founded in 2020, Benmo Technology is working toward this goal. From the perspective of business structure, it is mainly divided into two major sectors: "robot power modules" and "complete robots". The robot power module business includes two categories: robot direct drive power modules and embodied joint modules, among which robot direct drive power modules are the absolute main force, accounting for more than 95% of total revenue.

From 2023 to 2025, the revenue of direct drive power modules (for consumer, industrial and commercial use) rose from 14.2 million yuan to 268 million yuan, and the shipment volume increased from 186,000 sets to 8.498 million sets, a surge of more than 40 times.

Driven by this, Benmo Technology's revenue increased from 17.54 million yuan in 2023 to 282 million yuan in 2025, with a two-year compound annual growth rate as high as 300%.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan, Benmo Technology's market share in China's consumer robot direct drive power module market reached 61.1% in 2025, ranking first.

However, this figure cannot prove the strength and industry status of Benmo Technology.

Because the direct drive power module is only a small segment of the entire consumer robot power module, accounting for only 3.9%. If ranked in the entire consumer market, Benmo Technology's market share is only 2.4%, ranking 8th. In addition, if expanded to the field of China's industrial and commercial robot power modules (where consumer robot power modules account for 26.3%), Benmo Technology's market share will be even lower.

Thus, the business profile of Benmo Technology is gradually clear, with the keywords "consumer-grade" and "direct drive power modules". On the surface, its market share is very high, but in fact, the market size is too small.

The downstream of direct drive power modules includes a number of categories that have achieved large-scale shipments, such as sweeping robots, lawn mowing robots, AI companion robots, and collaborative robots.

Sweeping robots are its most important revenue source. Benmo Technology's main customers started with Unitree Robotics and Ecovacs, and gradually entered the supply system of other customers such as Roborock, Narwal, and Dreame.

According to Chidu Finance, Dreame was still the third largest customer of Benmo Technology in 2023, contributing 3.026 million yuan in revenue; in 2024, it jumped to the largest customer, contributing 49.544 million yuan in revenue, accounting for as high as 62.1%; in 2025, the figure further increased to 120 million yuan, accounting for 42.8%.

Benmo Technology's main customers started with Unitree Robotics and Ecovacs, and gradually entered the supply system of other customers such as Roborock, Narwal, and Dreame.

The resulting revenue contribution shows that the proportion of consumer applications soared from 18.3% in 2023 to 88% in 2025, while the proportion of industrial and commercial applications plummeted from 62.7% to 7%, of which industrial applications only accounted for 1%.

On the official website of Benmo Technology, the four solutions are household appliances, industry and commerce, fitness and entertainment, and embodied intelligence. In the household appliances category, the applications of direct drive motors in floor scrubbers and sweeping robots are listed, while in the industry and commerce and embodied intelligence categories, there is only the lonely line "more exciting content coming soon".

This transformation is reflected in the average selling price.

The average selling price of industrial and commercial applications has always been higher than that of consumer applications. For example, in the first half of this year, the average selling price of commercial applications reached 520 yuan, while that of consumer applications has always been less than 30 yuan. However, Benmo Technology mainly relies on consumer applications, which leads to the overall selling price of robot direct drive power modules dropping all the way from 77 yuan in 2023 to 31 yuan in 2025.

Benmo Technology attributes this to economies of scale and supply chain cost reduction, but the shift from selling high-priced industrial and commercial modules to low-priced consumer-grade in-wheel motors is more like a change in product positioning.

Considering its gross profit margin of 18.4%, each set of direct drive power modules only earns 5 to 6 yuan, which is roughly equivalent to the price of a cup of lemonade from Mixue Bingcheng.

This also means that Benmo Technology has not yet achieved profitability. In 2025, its adjusted net loss was 43.25 million yuan, narrowing from 61.22 million yuan in 2023. In the first half of 2026, the adjusted net loss was 27.5 million yuan, expanding year on year.

Overall, Benmo Technology is more like a component supplier for sweeping robot manufacturers such as Dreame and Roborock, and it does not have pricing power.

The Hard-to-Sell Embodied Intelligence Narrative

If the direct drive power module is the survival foundation of Benmo Technology, then embodied intelligence is its vast blue ocean.

In 2025, Benmo Technology shipped 12,000 sets of embodied joint modules, generating revenue of 6.8 million yuan. As of June 30, 2026, it has supplied products to one of China's top 5 embodied intelligent robot manufacturers (ranked by total value of on-hand orders in 2025).

Benmo Technology's direct drive power technology is highly distinctive. Against the mainstream industry joint solution of "motor + reducer", Zhang Di's team took a different path, integrating the outer rotor brushless motor, high-precision encoder and servo driver into one unit, eliminating the gear transmission link to achieve low noise, fast response and high backdrivability.

This solution has been verified in some consumer-grade scenarios, as evidenced by the sales record of 8.5 million sets.

An industry insider told AI Lanmeihui: "Direct drive works on drive wheels and roller brushes because these scenarios have low rotation speed, direct load and limited space, which are exactly the scenarios where using reducers is the least cost-effective."

As for humanoid robots, the joints of legs and arms are exactly the scenarios where reducers are needed: they need to output high torque in a very small space, while being able to withstand impact and continuous heat generation. Without reducers, the mechanical torque amplification is lost, and torque density and heat dissipation become hard thresholds. Currently, the joints of leading humanoid products of all manufacturers still mainly adopt harmonic and planetary reducer solutions.

The self-developed complete robot of Benmo Technology is wheel-legged rather than humanoid. Benmo Technology does not have its own humanoid robot to prove the feasibility of its technical route. Its admission ticket to the embodied intelligence era is supplying joints to other manufacturers.

Moreover, the valuation premium of embodied intelligence is concentrated on complete machines and the "brain", and the position of direct drive innovation in the embodied intelligence value chain remains to be clarified.

The aforementioned industry insider said: "In simple terms, the robot industry chain can be roughly divided into 'brain', 'cerebellum' and 'muscle', which are responsible for perception and decision-making, motion control and joint execution respectively. Benmo Technology's direct drive power module occupies a relatively underlying, most manufacturing-focused link."

In other words, this link is not irreplaceable. The fact is that the joint track is getting increasingly crowded, with traditional reducer manufacturers, micro-motor factories, and in-house R&D teams of complete machine manufacturers all entering this field. Once a major customer decides to develop related products on its own, Benmo Technology's revenue will be severely affected.

In addition to robot direct drive power modules, Benmo Technology also has a complete wheel-legged robot business. In 2025, it sold 240 units, generating revenue of 7.31 million yuan, ranking second in China's dual-wheel-legged robot market with a market share of 18.6%.

However, this is another niche field. The prospectus mentions that China's wheel-legged and dual-wheel-legged robot industry accounts for less than 1% of China's robot industry.

At present, Benmo Technology still relies on 29-yuan direct drive motors to drive its scale growth. The embodied intelligence vision it wants to promote seems to have just started. Only when the embodied intelligence-related business truly grows into its second growth curve can Benmo Technology fully deliver on its narrative.

This article is from the WeChat official account "AI Lanmeihui", written by Feng Hua, edited by Wei Xiao, and published with authorization from 36Kr.