Unitree Shares Soar 629% in Shanghai Stock Debut
The Chinese humanoid robot maker's IPO raised about $904 million as investors bet big on China's robotics ambitions.
Shares of Unitree, one of China's largest humanoid robot makers, soared as much as 629% in its trading debut Wednesday on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR market, before settling to a gain of nearly 500% by midday.
The company, founded in 2016 by entrepreneur Wang Xingxing in Hangzhou, raised about 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) in the listing. Shares were priced at 150.80 yuan ($22.36) each.
The debut underscores investor enthusiasm for China's advances in "embodied" artificial intelligence, a sector at the center of technological competition between China and the United States. China leads the U.S. in humanoid robot production capacity and manufacturing scale, according to research group Omdia. Last year, Unitree and rival AGIBOT each shipped more than 5,000 of the roughly 15,000 humanoid robots delivered worldwide.
Still, analysts caution that most humanoid robots today are used mainly for demonstrations, performances and research rather than practical work. Unitree's robots have performed backflips and martial arts at China's Spring Festival gala.
"The real competitive test will be whether companies — Chinese or American — can achieve reliable performance and attractive returns on investment in large-scale industrial and commercial deployments," said Kangyuxiao Li, an analyst at Morningstar.
Unitree said IPO proceeds will fund robot research and expand its manufacturing base. It is the first publicly traded humanoid robotics maker in mainland China, and analysts believe the listing could set a valuation benchmark for future robotics offerings. Rival UBTech, listed in Hong Kong, saw its shares fall 10.6% Wednesday.
Unitree reported about 1.7 billion yuan ($250 million) in 2025 revenue, more than 40% of it from overseas. The U.S. accounted for roughly 13% of last year's revenue, but the company warned that a July ban by the Federal Communications Commission on imports of new foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots could hurt future U.S. sales, though existing models can still be sold.
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