Chinese Robotics Giant Unitree Soars In Stock Market Debut (bbc.com) 22
Chinese robotics giant Unitree surged more than 600% in its Shanghai stock market debut, marking the first mainland Chinese listing by a humanoid robot maker and a major milestone for Beijing's robotics ambitions. The BBC reports: Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, was founded in 2016 and now plays a key role in Beijing's ambitions to develop advanced technology. It has become a robotics industry leader, selling devices from sensors and automated arms to four-legged and human-like machines. The firm shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year as demand for the technology grows.
Unitree is one of the few companies in the sector to make money, delivering a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025. It is a fierce rival to developers in the US as it produces robots with similar features but at lower prices. The company is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China. The region is home to a so-called golden cluster zone of robotics firms, which have benefited from huge government investments. That support helped drive a more than threefold increase in the number of Chinese robotics firms between 2020 and 2024, according to state-run China Daily.
[...] Unitree's robot dogs start at $2,700, a fraction of the roughly $70,000 price tag for Boston Dynamics' four-legged device, Spot. "They're not exactly comparable because some of Unitree's dogs are much smaller," [said Harold Soh, a researcher from the National University of Singapore]. "But the price is a big difference." Unitree has been selling humanoid robots since 2023, with its $13,500 child-sized G1 model hitting the market the following year. Meanwhile, major US rivals -- including Elon Musk's Tesla -- have yet to start delivering rival products.
[...] Some experts expect Unitree's market debut to be a gauge of investor appetite for the fast-growing humanoid robotics sector. The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, said Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrategy. The listing also marks a "turning point" for China's robotics industry, as Unitree's success comes even as the US is curbing imports of foreign-made robots, Pearson said.
Unitree is one of the few companies in the sector to make money, delivering a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025. It is a fierce rival to developers in the US as it produces robots with similar features but at lower prices. The company is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China. The region is home to a so-called golden cluster zone of robotics firms, which have benefited from huge government investments. That support helped drive a more than threefold increase in the number of Chinese robotics firms between 2020 and 2024, according to state-run China Daily.
[...] Unitree's robot dogs start at $2,700, a fraction of the roughly $70,000 price tag for Boston Dynamics' four-legged device, Spot. "They're not exactly comparable because some of Unitree's dogs are much smaller," [said Harold Soh, a researcher from the National University of Singapore]. "But the price is a big difference." Unitree has been selling humanoid robots since 2023, with its $13,500 child-sized G1 model hitting the market the following year. Meanwhile, major US rivals -- including Elon Musk's Tesla -- have yet to start delivering rival products.
[...] Some experts expect Unitree's market debut to be a gauge of investor appetite for the fast-growing humanoid robotics sector. The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, said Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrategy. The listing also marks a "turning point" for China's robotics industry, as Unitree's success comes even as the US is curbing imports of foreign-made robots, Pearson said.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
the psychological warfare they are leading against the USA
They're literally sitting back watching us wage psychological warfare on ourselves while our president shits himself awake on live TV.
Re: Of course China is eating our lunch right now (Score:2)
Re: Of course China is eating our lunch right now (Score:2)
TBF sometimes he also shits himself to sleep
Re: (Score:3)
Of course China is eating our lunch right now thanks to the psychological warfare they are leading against the USA. The saddest thing about it is that many real Americans are sold to China without even realizing it. Many real Americans are now religiously listening and following Chinese trolls pretending to be American like rsilvergun and believing all their lies and the propaganda they spread, so sad...
The entire rest of the world considers the US every bit as sketchy as China now. No need for propaganda, every time your leader opens his mouth billions of people roll their eyes and laugh.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think China limits its subtle propaganda and psychological warfare only to the USA?
No propaganda is needed to make the senescent orange child rapist a laughing stock, or to allow him to make our country one either.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think China limits its subtle propaganda and psychological warfare only to the USA?
Trump's profound stupidity is not China's doing. They don't put dumb words in his mouth or dumb ideas in his head. As excuses go you will need to try much harder.
New metric of AI company value needed (Score:2)
I propose a new metric for assessing the bloviated market value of AI companies. Not sure what to call it, but it's based on price to earnings ratio. As far as I know, the current leader is Musk's corporate cancer with a value over 200, whereas the same source said the other big AI companies including the google, Anthropic, and Microsoft were around 25 to one. My fuzzy memories of helping an MBA researching corporate bankruptcy included something about normal ratios of 10:1, but that was a long time ago. Of
Re: (Score:2)
*sigh*
s/more more/more money/
Re: (Score:2)
SpaceX isn't a profitable company, so its P/E would technically be negative. That crazy high number around 200 we've seen is actually the P/S, which is kind of like P/E if you ignore expenses.
But to be clear - Higher isn't better. It theoretically means people have more faith in future earnings; in practice, it's purely a measure of hype, and higher is primarly worse.
The US is screwed (Score:2)
Re:The US is screwed (Score:4, Interesting)
In the USA these companies maximize profits above all else. They have no long term goals or planning. Now that China is besting them on quality and efficiency all they can do is cry to daddy Trump for the ban hammer. In the 70s Japan started cranking out cheap and reliable cars and caught the makers of land yachts off guard. It happened again with Harley Davidson in the 80s who went crying to Reagan.
Re: (Score:2)
Massive number of engineers and scientists graduating every year. They put in the work and built better robots, it's as simple as that.
Unless you think they have a time machine and stole out tech before we even invented it.
IPO price probably set too low (Score:2)
I don't know how IPOs work in China but if this happened in the US, it would indicate the IPO price was set way too low.
The idea "IPO spike" is about 0 or maybe a little bit above 0.
If it drops on the first day that's obviously bad.
If it's goes up it means the company left money on the table. Sometimes its good to leave a little money on the table to give the IPO underwriters an others a reason to stay excited about your company.
It still canâ(TM)t do anything useful (Score:2)
Robots still lack the hand dexterity and agility to do anything commercially useful. Sure it can dance a jig, so what? How many dancers does Taylor Swift need to replace? It will be at least a decade possibly 30 years until we have a humanoid robot able to assemble Lego, sculpt, put together a smartphone, do farm work, or even do meal prep. Bookmark and come back to this comment in 2036. I wish I were wrong, because I like robots .. but the difficult parts are not being worked on.
Hello, you appear to be stuck is a time loop (Score:2)
Re: It still canâ(TM)t do anything useful (Score:2)
Nice! (Score:2)
I'd have liked to see robots selling and buying stock on the stock market floor, if it still existed.