Core Matter

Topic · Updated 12 August 2026

Which robot companies are shipping units, and which are shipping demos?

Shipment counts, revenue by application, and field metrics from operators running fleets. The gap between a demo video and a deployment, measured where the numbers exist.

73.6%

Unitree humanoid revenue from research and education, Jan–Sep 2025

Filing-grade

9.0%

Unitree humanoid revenue labelled industry application

Filing-grade

90.2% → 98%

Xiaomi Robotics-0 success rate on a screw station after four months on line

Company-claimed

13,000–18,000

Humanoids shipped globally in 2025, per Omdia and IDC

Third-party

The current answer

  • 01Unitree ships more humanoids than anyone and 73.6 percent of its humanoid revenue came from research and education in the first nine months of 2025. Commercial and consumer, which means retail display, events and museums, was 17.4 percent. Industry application was 9.0 percent. Filing-grade, disclosed under the STAR Board inquiry process.
  • 02Inside that 9.0 percent, 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 volume leader.
  • 03Between 13,000 and 18,000 humanoids shipped globally in 2025 per Omdia and IDC, the overwhelming majority Chinese. The Chinese industry body HRAA counted roughly 20,000 in China alone, so the counts differ by definition rather than by measurement error.
  • 04Shipment volume and deployment are different quantities, and the revenue split above is the cleanest evidence of the distance between them.
  • 05The most credible factory-yield disclosure to date is Xiaomi's. After four months on its own EV assembly line, its Robotics-0 model took a self-tapping screw station from 90.2 percent to 98 percent success, roughly a point off the human benchmark, and picked up two new tasks at around 90 percent. Company-claimed, July 2026, and notable because Xiaomi owns the factory it deploys into.
  • 06In field robotics outside humanoids, deployment metrics are far more concrete. Built Robotics runs ten 72-ton pile-driving robots handling more than half the pile-driving at Meta's Hyperion data center site in Louisiana. Dusty Robotics has printed roughly 350 million square feet of layout. Carbon Robotics has 100-plus LaserWeeders in the field across 14 countries. FORT Robotics covers 19,000-plus machines under a SIL 3 certified safety layer.
  • 07What breaks deployment is the environment rather than the autonomy. Operators on the record name dust degrading hardware, heat forcing units offline between shifts, and connectivity failure, in one case birds nesting on a cellular tower.

Humanoid shipments, 2025

Counts differ by definition. Whether wheeled and half-size platforms are included decides the ranking.

MakerUnits shipped, 2025BasisProvenance
Unitree5,500+Pure bipeds, delivered not ordered, excludes dual-arm wheeledFiling-grade
AgiBot5,168Includes wheeled and half-size forms; ~1,300 on a full-size-only cutThird-party
UBTech600–1,000Most stable figure across three countsThird-party
EngineAI500+Per HRAAThird-party
Robotera500+Per HRAAThird-party
Figure~150Cited in Unitree's inquiry responseThird-party
Agility Robotics~150Cited in Unitree's inquiry responseThird-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 domainShare of humanoid revenueProvenance
Research and education73.6%Filing-grade
Commercial and consumer (retail display, events, museums)17.4%Filing-grade
Industry application9.0%Filing-grade

Within the 9.0% labelled industry application, the largest single use is enterprise tour-guide and showroom demonstration.

Field robotics deployment metrics

Operators running fleets outside the humanoid form factor, where deployment numbers are concrete. All company-reported.

OperatorCumulative deploymentThroughput
Dusty Robotics~350M sq ft of layout printed40,000–70,000 sq ft per shift, against 8,000–15,000 for a human crew
Carbon Robotics100+ machines in field, 150+ shipped, 14 countries~2 acres per hour
Built Robotics40+ solar deployments, 2+ GW since 2018Up to 300 piles per day with a 2-person crew, ~1,000 per day on the Louisiana site
FORT Robotics19,000+ machines, 500+ customers, SIL 3 certifiedHorizontal safety layer, no per-machine rate

Dusty runs 4 to 5 times a human layout crew per shift. Every fleet on this list runs on a safety substrate it buys rather than builds.

The research behind this answer

Every Core Matter piece that contributed to the figures above, newest first, with what each one added.

  1. Newsletter

    4 August 2026

    Home robot economics 101: what 1X, Weave and Tau cost to run

    Deployment economics in the home tier, where the operating cost rather than the unit price decides viability.

    Read it →

  2. Newsletter

    21 July 2026

    WAIC recap: the robots stopped performing and started clocking in

    The first factory-yield numbers put on the table publicly, from Xiaomi, AgiBot, Pia Automation, Spirit AI and Galbot.

    Read it →

  3. Newsletter

    17 July 2026

    Ten robots, one Louisiana swamp, and Meta's next data center

    Field metrics from four operators running fleets, and the three environmental failure modes that break deployment.

    Read it →

  4. Newsletter

    1 July 2026

    Agility's $2.5bn SPAC runs on $200m from Foxconn

    What a US industrial humanoid maker is valued at, against roughly 150 units shipped.

    Read it →

  5. Newsletter

    25 June 2026

    Cobot logs 12k factory hours as NVIDIA moves in

    Cumulative runtime as a deployment metric, and what a real hours figure looks like.

    Read it →

  6. Report

    17 June 2026

    17,000 humanoids shipped last year. Almost none went to work.

    The shipment base and the revenue split that separate volume from deployment.

    Read it → · Data page →

  7. Newsletter

    13 June 2026

    Standard Bots hits $1bn the same week the Pentagon lists Unitree

    Valuations against shipment reality across the 2026 funding wave, and the EngineAI scale-up target.

    Read it →

What this answer cannot cover yet

  • 01Payback period is the number missing from every deployment disclosure in this hub. No operator has published one.
  • 02Humanoid factory-yield claims are company-claimed without exception. No filing-grade yield data exists yet.

Related topics

How to read the figures

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 is updated as new research lands rather than republished, and the date at the top is the last time a figure on it moved.

Research access

This answer moves when new work lands

The research that updates this page is published as it is finished, built from company filings, datasheets and direct factory pricing.

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