China shipped roughly 90 percent of the world’s humanoid robots in 2025, dominating global production volume even as a Morgan Stanley survey revealed that only 23 percent of potential enterprise buyers are satisfied with available commercial models due to practical constraints like a two-to-three-hour battery life.
The global race to build and commercialize humanoid robots has hit a reality check as manufacturers grapple with a massive gap between production capacity and real-world industrial demand. While Silicon Valley firms spent recent months polishing marketing strategies, Chinese manufacturers focused on mass production, shipping the vast majority of the world’s humanoid units last year, according to data from research firms Omdia and IDC.
Sales Volume and Market Leadership in China
The country’s largest humanoid robot company, Unitree, sold 5,500 humanoid robots last year, making it the world’s top seller in figures published for the first time by the company. Shanghai-based Agibot followed closely behind, selling 5,168 units, Rest of World reported.
This neck-and-neck domestic competition mirrors the playbook that propelled China to dominance in the electric vehicle market, driven by early state support, public investment, and a mature local supply chain. Tech analyst Lian Jye Su of consultancy firm Omdia noted that Chinese vendors rely heavily on local components to drive down costs and speed up time to market, as detailed by Rest of World. By contrast, American counterparts including Figure AI, Agility Robotics, and Tesla each sold around 150 units last year.
The Commercialization Gap and Buyer Satisfaction
Despite impressive production figures and high-profile exhibitions featuring robots performing kung-fu routines, the market faces significant hurdles in commercial adoption. A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley and led by China industrials analyst Sheng Zhong found that only 23 per cent of surveyed enterprises were satisfied with the products currently available on the market.
Practical constraints continue to limit widespread workplace deployment. Battery life typically tops out at two to three hours per charge, and many robots remain fragile, expensive, and dependent on highly structured environments. Ninety-two per cent of survey respondents indicated that humanoid robots need to drop below 200,000 renminbi—roughly $28,000—before mass adoption becomes financially viable for their operations, The Next Web reported.
“The economics are tough: humanoid robots remain expensive to produce, fragile in operation, and dependent on highly structured environments to function.”
Samm Sacks, senior fellow at the New America think tank
Regulatory Warnings and Upcoming Initial Public Offerings
In late 2025, China’s National Development and Reform Commission issued a public warning about the risk of an industrial bubble. Spokesperson Li Chao noted that the number of domestic humanoid companies had climbed past 150, cautioning against redundant products, duplicated investments, and compressed space for genuine research and development, according to reporting by The Next Web.
Even with regulatory caution, top-tier Chinese robotics companies are pushing forward with major financial maneuvers. Unitree filed for a $608 million initial public offering on Shanghai’s STAR Market, while AgiBot is targeting a listing in Hong Kong, The Next Web noted. Meanwhile, UBTech entered mass production for its Walker S2 industrial humanoid with orders exceeding 800 million yuan, and is constructing a Beijing factory designed to produce 10,000 units annually by the end of 2026.
Western Competition and the Road Ahead
Tesla continues to develop its general-purpose Optimus robot, with CEO Elon Musk acknowledging at the World Economic Forum that China represents the toughest competition in both AI and manufacturing. While Musk noted that Tesla’s Optimus robots are performing simple tasks inside company factories and could be sold to the general public by the end of 2027, Rest of World reported he did not see significant competitors outside of China.
Industry analysts emphasize that Western companies will likely compete by focusing on advanced software, autonomy, and superior artificial intelligence rather than sheer hardware volume. Whether industrial users will bridge the gap between theoretical interest—with 62 per cent of surveyed companies expressing a willingness to adopt humanoids within three years—and active deployment remains the central question for the sector heading into 2026.
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