Shares of Unitree Robotics have nearly halved since the Chinese company's blockbuster IPO almost two weeks ago, as concerns about a humanoid robotics bubble continue to mount. Not even China's World Humanoid Robot Games or World Robot Conference generated enough enthusiasm among retail or institutional investors to rekindle upward momentum.
The warning signs were first visible from the opening bell in Shanghai. Unitree initially surged 629% when it began trading on Shanghai's Star Market, immediately transforming China's first publicly traded humanoid robot manufacturer into a real-time indicator of the industry.
Unitree's valuation remains detached from even the assumptions of its own underwriting team. Citic Securities analysts valued the company at between 50.6 billion yuan and 55.9 billion yuan six to 12 months after listing. Even after the stock was halved, it is still worth more than four times the top of that range.
Through July, Unitree said it had produced about 18,000 humanoids, while first-quarter revenue increased 68.5% from a year earlier to 423 million yuan. Its current market capitalization is roughly 147 times its annualized first-quarter revenue.
"Given that level of uncertainty, Unitree's high valuation is probably not justified," said Chen Dong, CIO for Asia at Bank J. Safra Sarasin, citing the stock's lofty price-to-earnings ratio and the difficulty of staying ahead in an "infant-level" industry where competition is intensifying.
Zhang Ying, an economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said, "Widespread adoption is currently hindered by financial constraints, such as high upfront and maintenance costs, and technical limitations, such as short battery life, which make it difficult for manufacturers to justify the investment."
Unitree founder Wang Xingxing told the World Robot Conference in Beijing shortly after the IPO that mass-market adoption of these robots would be achieved within the next decade. That timeline is broadly in line with the forecasts we have provided readers from multiple institutional desks.
More broadly, the Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index (a yuan-denominated equity benchmark tracking Chinese companies involved in humanoid robotics, including robot manufacturers, AI systems, motion controls, precision actuators, and industrial automation) shows that the bubble has been deflating since peaking in mid-2025.
The next big test for Unitree and China's robotics industry is whether they can scale commercially before Tesla brings its humanoid robot to market, which JPMorgan analysts expect to occur in the second half of 2027 (read here).