China advanced manufacturing tour: Takeaways from Unitree visit ahead of its listing

Research evidence excerpt

China advanced manufacturing tour: Takeaways from Unitree visit ahead of its listing

Global Markets Research

China advanced manufacturing tour 18 June 2026

EQUITY: TECHNOLOGY

Takeaways from Unitree visit ahead of its listing Research Analysts

Advanced Manufacturing

Full-stack cost lead intact; however, model capability and Frank Fan - NIHK

frank.fan@nomura.comB-end breadth still unproven, as per management

+852 2252 2195

Management: Profitable humanoid player cleared for STAR Market on full-stack Donnie Teng - NIHK

cost advantage donnie.teng@nomura.com

We visited Unitree (unlisted), a global leader in high-performance general-purpose +852 2252 1439

humanoid and quadruped robots, on 15 June 2026. On 1 June, its STAR (Sci-Tech

Innovation Board) IPO was cleared by the SSE (Shanghai Stock Exchange) Listing

Review Committee. According to the company, Unitree plans to issue 40.44mn shares to

raise CNY4.2bn. In 2025, its humanoid shipments topped 5,500 units, ranking first

globally, while revenue rose 335% y-y to CNY1.7bn and net profit reached CNY288mn.

According to management, the company recorded c.60% gross margin and a 90%+

production-and-sales ratio, underpinned by a full-stack in-house model in which motors,

reducers and LiDAR are self-developed, and purchased components contribute only c.14-

18% of total cost. Management characterises mature quadruped cash flows as funding

humanoid R&D and market expansion.

Brain barrier: The sector's binding bottleneck beyond motion control

According to on an external industry survey, Unitree leads globally in motion control;

however, the binding constraint instead sits in the "brain" (e.g. the world model) - a

general-purpose technology. Crucially, the dominant model roadmap has not yet