Research · 17 June 2026
17,000 humanoids shipped last year. Almost none went to work.
China's humanoid IPO filings produced the first audited answers on who ships, who buys, and who profits.
13,000–18,000
Humanoids shipped globally in 2025, per Omdia and IDC
Third-party
90
New Chinese humanoid makers entering in the last 7 months of 2025
Third-party
~150
Units shipped by Figure and by Agility Robotics each in 2025
Third-party
9%
Share of Unitree humanoid revenue labelled industry application
Filing-grade
What it found
- 01Between 13,000 and 18,000 humanoids shipped globally in 2025, the overwhelming majority of them Chinese. Shipment volume is not the same thing as deployment.
- 02The Chinese humanoid market is involuted rather than consolidated. 90 new humanoid makers entered in the last seven months of 2025, and no winner has emerged. Unitree and AgiBot are close on total units shipped.
- 03The manufacturing lead is about iteration speed as much as cost. Vertical integration into motors, reducers and encoders buys a design cycle measured in days rather than months.
- 04The claim that China builds the body and the United States builds the brain no longer holds on open benchmarks.
Humanoid shipments, 2025
Counts differ by definition. Whether wheeled and half-size platforms are included decides the ranking.
| Maker | Units shipped, 2025 | Basis | Provenance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unitree | 5,500+ | Pure bipeds, delivered not ordered, excludes dual-arm wheeled | Filing-grade |
| AgiBot | 5,168 | Includes wheeled and half-size forms; ~1,300 on a full-size-only cut | Third-party |
| UBTech | 600–1,000 | Most stable figure across three counts | Third-party |
| EngineAI | 500+ | Per HRAA | Third-party |
| Robotera | 500+ | Per HRAA | Third-party |
| Figure | ~150 | Cited in Unitree's inquiry response | Third-party |
| Agility Robotics | ~150 | Cited in Unitree's inquiry response | Third-party |
Western trackers counted 13,000 to 18,000 units shipped worldwide in 2025. Chinese industry body HRAA counted roughly 20,000 in China alone.
Where humanoid revenue actually comes from
Unitree's revenue by application domain, January to September 2025, disclosed under the STAR Board inquiry process.
| Application domain | Share of humanoid revenue | Provenance |
|---|---|---|
| Research and education | 73.6% | Filing-grade |
| Commercial and consumer (retail display, events, museums) | 17.4% | Filing-grade |
| Industry application | 9.0% | Filing-grade |
Within the 9.0% labelled industry application, the largest single use is enterprise tour-guide and showroom demonstration. Robots doing physical industrial work account for a low single-digit share of humanoid revenue at the company that ships more humanoids than anyone.
Questions this report answers
- Who is actually shipping humanoids?
- Who buys them, and for what?
- How did China get here?
- What does a humanoid cost now?
- Who makes money today?
- Is “China-body, American-brain” true?
- What still stands between humanoids and real work?
Method and sources
Read from Unitree's STAR Board IPO prospectus and its regulatory inquiry responses, UBTech's annual report, and third-party shipment trackers from Omdia, IDC and HRAA, alongside MIIT and SASAC policy documents.
Every figure on this page is labelled by provenance. Filing-grade means it comes from a regulatory filing. Company-claimed means the company stated it. Third-party means a tracker, retail listing, teardown, or Core Matter estimate.
This page carries the headline data
The full report, with the complete exhibit set and the analysis behind these figures, is published in the newsletter.
Read the full report →