Unitree's post-IPO plunge hints at potential unraveling of China's humanoid robots market

Unitree Robotics (SHA: 688001) traded under 500 yuan a share for the first time on Thursday. That decline erases more than 240 billion yuan of paper value behind the Chinese humanoid maker since its debut peak roughly three weeks ago and contributes to the fears that there is a bubble in the country’s robot sector. Why did Unitree Robotics stocks fall? When Unitree listed on Shanghai’s STAR Market on August 19, its shares were priced at 150.80 yuan and finished the first session at 845 yuan, representing a gain of more than 460%. During intraday trading, the stock touched 1,100 yuan, briefly raising the company’s value to roughly 445 billion yuan, or about $66 billion. However, that peak has not held. The stock ended the previous trading session at 513.93 yuan (about $72.10), roughly 39% below its first-day closing price, and 53% below its first-day high. On Thursday, it broke 500 yuan, dropping close to 3% to leave a market capitalization near 202 billion yuan. When compared to the 445-billion-yuan peak, more than 240 billion yuan in value has evaporated in about three weeks. Despite the fall, Unitree trades at more than three times its 150.80-yuan offer price, and the company’s roughly $900 million raise, about 6.1 billion yuan, still stands. Is Unitree’s business worth the valuation? Unitree Robotics, officially referred to as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, reported 2025 revenue of 1.70 billion yuan (about $252 million), a sharp increase from the reported 392.77 million yuan the year before. The sale of more than 5,500 humanoid robots contributed as much as 868 million yuan to its 2025 total. The company also posted a net profit of 278 million yuan and stated that for the first half of 2026, it expects revenue between 1.052 billion and 1.128 billion yuan, which would be a growth of about 36% to 45%. Even so, Thursday’s close valued the firm at roughly $30 billion, which is about 125 times the company’s 2025 sales and more than 350 times its adjusted earnings. For contrast, Oregon’s Agility Robotics disclosed $1.78 million in 2025 net sales alongside a $140.2 million operating loss in its SEC filing for a proposed SPAC that values it near $2.5 billion. What are regulators doing about IPOs for humanoid robot companies? The China Securities Regulatory Commission has given informal “window guidance” to some banks and companies, telling them that humanoid robot companies hoping to launch IPOs need to show recurring revenue, a path to narrower losses, or genuine technological innovation. China currently hosts more than 90 humanoid training centers, many of which are co-funded by local governments and manufacturers that buy robots to generate teleoperated training data.