China has more than 150 humanoid robot companies and shipped roughly 90 percent of the world's humanoid robots in 2025. Its two largest makers, Unitree and AgiBot, are preparing initial public offerings that would value them at a combined $13 billion. Morgan Stanley doubled its delivery forecast for the Chinese market this year to 28,000 units, a 133 percent increase over 2025. Yet when Morgan Stanley surveyed the companies that are supposed to buy these robots, only 23 percent said they were satisfied with the products available.
The gap between production and demand
Battery life tops out at two to three hours per charge. Most deployments remain confined to exhibitions, showrooms, and Spring Festival galas where robots perform kung-fu routines for television cameras. The technology has arrived. The customers have not.
The Morgan Stanley survey, led by China industrials analyst Sheng Zhong, found that 62 percent of Chinese companies said they were likely to adopt humanoid robots within three years. That willingness, however, collided with a set of practical constraints that the industry has not resolved. The 23 percent satisfaction rate reflected shortcomings in dexterity, functionality, and pricing. Ninety-two percent of respondents said robots needed to fall below 200,000 renminbi, roughly $28,000, before mass adoption became viable. Only about 10 percent of companies surveyed were currently evaluating or running pilot projects.
The warning signs
In late 2025, China's National Development and Reform Commission issued a rare public statement about the humanoid robot sector. Spokesperson Li Chao noted that the number of companies had climbed past 150 and was still growing, with more than half being startups or cross-industry entrants. The NDRC warned of redundant products, duplicated investment, and compressed space for genuine research and development.
Morgan Stanley's Zhong described 2026 as "a critical year as humanoid integrators strive to reach commercialisation and build up their ecosystems," and warned of an impending shake-out. Production, he noted, is likely to be materially larger than sales, because major players are manufacturing robots internally for training and verification rather than shipping them to paying customers.
The competition
China's dominance in humanoid robot shipments has not gone unnoticed. Boston Dynamics began commercial production of its electric Atlas robot in January 2026 and announced plans to deploy tens of thousands of units at Hyundai Motor Group factories, with a manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia, targeting 30,000 units per year by 2028. Figure AI holds a $39 billion private valuation after its September 2025 fundraise, despite shipping a fraction of the volume Chinese companies manage. Tesla's Optimus