Surged by 2203%! "The First Stock of Humanoid Robots," "Crisis" Temporarily Averted

As AI · Strong earnings reports, how do companies respond to profit pressure?

The future has arrived, it’s just not yet popular.

The market imagination for humanoid robots has already opened up, and future company valuations will be directly linked to revenue scale.

In fact, since the industry explosion in 2023, the humanoid robot track has become quite crowded in just two years. By the end of 2025, over 150 humanoid robot companies have emerged domestically, more than half of which are startups or cross-industry entrants.

Against this backdrop, the淘汰赛 (elimination race) in the humanoid robot sector will intensify further, and the advantages of leading companies will also be amplified.

On March 31, Hong Kong-listed top robot company UBTECH released its full-year 2025 performance report. The financial report shows that in 2025, UBTECH achieved revenue of 2B yuan, a year-on-year increase of 53.3%; gross profit was 754 million yuan, up 101.6%; net loss was 789.8 million yuan; net loss attributable to parent was 703 million yuan, with the loss narrowing.

In terms of gross margin, UBTECH’s gross margin in 2025 was 37.7%, an increase of 9 percentage points year-on-year.

The biggest highlight of UBTECH’s financial report comes from intelligent humanoid robot products and solutions. From the revenue structure, this segment has become UBTECH’s largest source of income, accounting for 41%.

The report shows that in 2025, the revenue from full-size embodied intelligent humanoid robots (not remote-controlled, not toys, over 160cm tall) reached 820 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2203.7%; sales volume reached 1,079 units, up 35,866.7%. Both revenue and sales volume ranked first globally. Based on this, the average selling price of full-size embodied intelligent humanoid robots is estimated to be about 760k yuan per unit.

Sales of non-full-size, non-embodied intelligent humanoid robots (including remote-controlled, pre-programmed, and toy types, under 160cm tall) totaled 12,759 units.

According to IDC’s latest report, in 2025, global shipments of humanoid robots will approach 18k units, a year-on-year increase of 508%, with a market size of about $440 million, mainly used in entertainment, commercial performances, scientific research, education, data collection, and other fields. UBTECH is the only company worldwide to deliver over a thousand full-size embodied intelligent humanoid robots in a year.

Driven by the better-than-expected financial results, UBTECH’s stock price surged over 17% the next day, with a total market value reaching HKD 50.3 billion.

The gift of the wind

Data shows that UBTECH was founded in 2012 and is a provider of intelligent service robots and solutions.

Since its founding, UBTECH has mainly focused on the humanoid robot field. Over more than a decade, it has launched products such as the small robot Alpha, humanoid robots Walker, Walker X, Walker S, etc., with core products covering enterprise and consumer-grade intelligent robots and solutions.

According to media reports, UBTECH’s founder Zhou Jian was originally an outsider to the industry. He graduated from Nanjing Forestry University’s School of Wood Industry, and accumulated his first pot of gold by running an automation equipment business.

In 2008, inspired by Japanese small humanoid robots, Zhou Jian began自主研发 (independent research and development) of domestic robots. After breaking through the key component of robot joint servo motors, he founded UBTECH in 2012.

In the early days, UBTECH’s main products were educational robots about 40 centimeters tall.

As is well known, the industry is in its early stage, “burning money” is inevitable, and financing is generally difficult, so valuations are not high. Therefore, it wasn’t until 2016 that UBTECH officially entered the field of large humanoid robots, establishing research institutes in Shenzhen and Beijing, focusing on engineering implementation and motion control algorithm development.

However, it wasn’t until August 2021, when Elon Musk first announced the “Tesla Bot” plan, claiming to create a general-purpose, bipedal humanoid robot to undertake dangerous, repetitive, and dull tasks, that the market widely began to pay attention to the humanoid robot track.

In September 2022, Musk officially unveiled the Optimus prototype. He stated that in the future, the production of humanoid robots could reach millions of units, and the mass-produced price would be much lower than that of cars.

With this industry wind at its back, capital flooded in crazily, and the humanoid robot track quickly became a hot sector, entering the fast lane of development. In December 2023, UBTECH took advantage of the trend to go public in Hong Kong, becoming the “first stock in humanoid robots.” Three months after listing, the company’s total market value once exceeded HKD 130 billion.

But it’s worth noting that this high point didn’t last long. Following subsequent financial disclosures and the unlocking of restricted shares, core shareholders repeatedly reduced their holdings, causing UBTECH’s stock price to plunge by over 80%, with the market cap dropping close to HKD 20 billion at its lowest.

Additionally, Zhou Jian terminated the concerted action relationship with Zhao Guoqun, Xia Yongjun, Wang Lin, Xiong Youjun, Xia Zuquan, and Shenzhen Intelligent Preferred Investment Partnership; because Zhou Jian directly and indirectly held about 23.49% of the company’s shares, with voting rights less than 30%, the company became a non-controlling entity, further putting pressure on the stock price. To stabilize market sentiment, Zhou Jian also made a commitment not to sell shares within 12 months.

At that time, industry insiders said: “If Tesla announces to stop developing humanoid robots, the entire humanoid robot track might suffer a heavy blow.”

It wasn’t until 2024, when Yushu Technology exploded in popularity, that the humanoid robot track revived, and UBTECH also seized this breathing space; combined with industry development benefits, in October 2025, UBTECH’s stock price peaked at HKD 161, nearly quadrupling from its lowest point.

Performance is king

In 2025, continuous capital inflows temporarily alleviated funding worries for various robot companies.

So, how to explore a high-quality commercial realization path has become a common challenge for humanoid robot enterprises, but some leading companies have already provided answers.

According to annual report data, in 2025, UBTECH delivered 1,079 full-size humanoid robots; Walker S series industrial humanoid robots have been mass deployed in automotive manufacturing, smart logistics, 3C electronics manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing, and other industrial scenarios, mainly handling transportation, sorting, and quality inspection tasks.

From the revenue structure, revenue from full-size embodied intelligent humanoid robots was 820 million yuan, the core income source; other intelligent robot products and solutions brought in 629 million yuan; other intelligent hardware devices generated 499 million yuan. It should be noted that, as the second-largest revenue source, the other intelligent robot products and solutions segment not only failed to grow but declined; the third-largest revenue, though slightly increased, growth was almost negligible.

In other words, the overall revenue growth in 2025 was entirely driven by the humanoid robot business line.

Geographically, UBTECH’s revenue in mainland China was 760k yuan, and in Hong Kong and overseas markets, 475 million yuan, with over 70% coming from domestic sales.

On R&D, UBTECH has maintained high R&D investment intensity, with over 500 million yuan spent in 2025, accounting for 25.4% of revenue. As of the end of 2025, UBTECH held 4.92 billion yuan in cash, and the company stated that future funds would mainly be invested in embodied intelligent fields.

After the financial report was released, Citibank issued a research report stating that UBTECH’s gross margin increased by 9 percentage points year-on-year to 37.7%, higher than the bank’s forecast of 30.1% and market expectations of 31.3%; revenue from humanoid robots surged 22 times to 820 million yuan (delivering 1,079 units), significantly higher than the previous estimate of 510 million yuan (725 units), which was 61% higher. The bank expects UBTECH’s stock price to react positively to this超预期 (better-than-expected) 2025 performance, reiterating a “Buy” rating and setting a target price of HKD 155.

The report pointed out that the improvement in UBTECH’s gross margin mainly benefited from the humanoid robot business, which achieved a gross margin of 54.6%. The company also revealed that in 2025, the gross profit from the humanoid robot business reached 448 million yuan, a 15.7-fold increase year-on-year, accounting for 59% of the company’s total gross profit.

On April 1, during the company’s earnings briefing, UBTECH’s management predicted that in 2026, the company’s gross margin would continue to improve, though perhaps not by as much as 9 percentage points, but could reach a range of 40% to 43%.

Kanjian Finance believes that, based on the financial data, the sharp increase in UBTECH’s humanoid robot business is mainly due to a low base last year, and overall operating conditions still need continuous observation. Overall, as the humanoid robot market enters the淘汰赛 (elimination race) stage, precisely targeting user groups will be crucial for corporate development.

From the industry trend perspective, the space for trial and error has greatly shrunk, and the industry has officially entered the performance realization period. Market evaluation standards for companies will become increasingly strict, especially in the Hong Kong stock market, where underperformance in financial data can have serious consequences. From this dimension, we believe UBTECH’s performance pressure in 2026 will still be significant, and as淘汰赛 (elimination race) continues, the market will demand higher profitability from enterprises.

Author’s statement: Personal opinions only, for reference.