DNA
BEIJING, Aug 21 (DNA):China shipped more than 40,000 humanoid robots in the first half of 2026, or 97 percent of the global total, the head of an industry body said on Thursday, as leading manufacturers ramp up production and put robots to work on trial factory lines.
Zhang Feng, who heads a national humanoid robotics industry group that organised the report, presented the findings of the 2026 Humanoid Robot Industry Development Report at the World Robot Conference (WRC) in Beijing. The report examines technology, supply chains and seven application areas across China, the United States, Germany, South Korea and Japan.
A separate report published in March put China’s shipments for the whole of 2025 at about 14,400 units, or 84.7 percent of the global total. The two figures are not directly comparable, as neither report disclosed how shipments were counted.
Zhang said Chinese manufacturers now make everything from key chips and components to complete robots, and that applications were moving from small trial batches towards routine, larger-scale deployment, DNA reported.
Company filings give a sense of that scale. Unitree’s listing prospectus shows the company built 5,716 humanoid robots last year, shipped 5,511 and booked sales of 5,215 — though some shipped units had yet to clear customer acceptance by year-end.
UBTECH’s annual results recorded sales of 1,079 units in its full-size humanoid robot products and services category in 2025, generating revenue of about 820 million yuan. Production capacity had reached an annualised 6,000-plus units by year-end, the company said, with orders spanning automotive manufacturing, smart manufacturing, smart logistics and embodied-intelligence data centres. Teams of its Walker S robots have handled, sorted, assembled and inspected parts on trial production lines.
Some of that work was on display at the conference. Robotics companies ran demonstrations built around logistics sorting and material handling, with robots picking items off moving conveyor belts and stacking boxes, alongside the dancing and athletic routines of previous years. Several exhibitors told China Economic Net they were working with manufacturers on trial deployments
