Spending 124 million to recruit scientists! UBTECH's humanoid robot business revenue soars 22 times but still remains unprofitable

（Source: First China Trend）

On April 2, a leading domestic humanoid robotics company, UBTECH, released a major recruitment announcement, saying that with a compensation package of RMB 124 million, it would recruit the Chief Scientist of embodied intelligence globally.

The “sky-high” compensation corresponds to the impressive results it had just unveiled: in 2025, UBTECH achieved revenue of RMB 2B, up 53.3% year over year. In 2025, the delivery volume of full-size embodied intelligence humanoid robots reached 1,079 units, making UBTECH the only company in the world to deliver more than 1,000 units of this category within a single year. Revenue from the related business was RMB 821 million, surging 2,203.7% year over year, and it jumped to become its largest revenue source.

However, although UBTECH’s revenue continues to grow at a high speed, its profitability difficulties have not improved. In 2025, the company recorded a net loss of RMB 790 million, with cumulative losses of more than RMB 4.2 billion over the past four years. Although the loss magnitude narrowed compared with the previous year, there is still a significant gap from reaching breakeven. In addition, competition behind it—represented by Unitree Technology—has been catching up closely with high gross margins and large-scale shipments.

How should it respond to ongoing losses, intensifying competition, and an imbalance in its business structure? The reporter contacted UBTECH; as of the time of publication, no response had been received.

Humanoid robots priced at an average of RMB 760k are selling out

UBTECH’s high-salary talent recruitment is definitely not baseless; it is built on its 2025 performance that exceeded expectations—revenue of RMB 2 billion, up 53% year over year. Among them, UBTECH’s most core full-size embodied intelligence humanoid robot—one with a height of more than 160 cm—is its “highlight” business. It delivered 1,079 units in a year, generated revenue of RMB 820 million, and had gross profit of RMB 448 million. Based on estimates, the average selling price of UBTECH’s full-size embodied intelligence humanoid robots is about RMB 760k per unit. According to the company’s disclosure, both shipment volume and revenue for this business have already ranked first globally.

Once the performance was released, UBTECH’s stock rose sharply by 17.1% on April 1, and then continued to move up slightly by 2.1% on April 2. Compared with the closing price before the annual report was released, the two trading days saw a cumulative increase of nearly 19.6%, corresponding to a market value of HKD 760k, up by more than HKD 8.2 billion from before the annual report.

From the broader industry landscape, UBTECH’s growth aligns with the global humanoid robotics market’s boom trend. According to IDC’s latest report, in 2025, the global shipment volume of humanoid robots was close to 18k units, up 508% year over year. The market size was about USD 440 million, mainly used in areas such as entertainment and performances, scientific research and education, and data collection.

As a forerunner in the industry, UBTECH, backed by its first-mover advantage, has occupied an important position in the global market. In 2025, it secured nearly RMB 1.4 billion in orders cumulatively. In September, it won a single contract worth RMB 250 million; in November, it won a RMB 264 million project in Guangxi Fangchenggang. These two occasions refreshed the global records for the largest single order for humanoid robots, further consolidating its advantage in scenario implementation.

Looking back at its development history, UBTECH was founded in 2012, and has focused on the intelligent service robotics field for more than a decade. It has rolled out products such as the Alpha small robot and the Walker series humanoid robots. Its core business covers enterprise-level and consumer-level intelligent robots and solutions. It listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of 2023, becoming the “first humanoid robot stock,” carrying industry expectations for the commercial rollout of humanoid robotics.

Although UBTECH’s founder, Zhou Jian, did not come from a traditional university track, he has led the company to breakthroughs in hardware servo motors and complete-machine manufacturing. However, in software core areas such as large model deployment, embodied intelligence algorithms, motion control, and perception, technological barriers still need to be overcome. To consolidate its advantages, UBTECH’s costly hiring for a “Chief Scientist of embodied intelligence” targets the most critical “key point” in the entire robot industry—basic algorithms and underlying architecture.

Financials and asset quality under pressure

Despite rapid revenue growth, UBTECH’s profitability predicament has not improved. Continued losses remain its core problem that urgently needs to be solved. In 2025, the company’s net loss reached RMB 790 million (about RMB 789 million). Over the past four years, cumulative losses exceeded RMB 4.2 billion. Although the loss level narrowed compared with the previous year, it is still far from breakeven, highlighting the awkward situation of “high growth without profitability.”

The core issue lies in persistently high expense spending, which severely eats into gross margin. In 2025, UBTECH’s R&D expenses were RMB 507 million, and selling expenses were RMB 471 million; together, these two expense items accounted for nearly 50% of total revenue. Although the gross margin of its humanoid robot business is as high as 54.6%, contributing about RMB 448 million in gross profit for the year, the high level of R&D investment and marketing expenses make it difficult for the high gross margin to translate into actual profitability; the scale effect has not truly been realized. Meanwhile, the company is still in a continued investment stage. As of the end of 2025, its cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet were RMB 4.92 billion, providing some funding support for future development, but the situation of long-term reliance on external financing has not changed fundamentally.

Even more worth noting is the warning sign regarding asset quality. By the end of 2025, UBTECH’s accounts receivable totaled RMB 760k, up 40%, already nearing the scale of the company’s full-year revenue. Of this, the bad debt provision reached RMB 539 million, with a provision ratio of nearly 29%. The main reason is that repayment from government-related customers has been delayed. Industry insiders point out that if repayment conditions from government customers worsen further in the future, it will directly erode the company’s profits and increase profitability pressure, creating even greater challenges for the company’s cash flow.

In addition, UBTECH’s large orders also have certain limitations. Of the nearly RMB 1.4 billion in orders it secured, most are local government projects. The core purpose of these projects purchasing robots is to collect real-world scenario data for technical iteration and training, rather than replacing human workers in actual production operations. This means such orders are difficult to form a sustainable, large-scale profitable model and cannot fundamentally solve the company’s profitability challenges.

The leading position faces multiple shocks

UBTECH’s business structure has clear shortcomings: it is overly dependent on the full-size humanoid robot segment, which has high growth but is difficult to scale, making its ability to withstand risks relatively weak. From its 2025 revenue structure, besides the humanoid robot business, revenue from products and solutions in areas such as education and logistics was RMB 629 million, accounting for 31.4%. Revenue from intelligent hardware equipment contributed RMB 499 million, accounting for 24.9%. Non-embodied intelligence humanoid robot products and solutions achieved unit sales of 12.7k, corresponding to revenue of only RMB 47.96 million, accounting for just 2.4%.

It is worth noting that UBTECH’s early traditional businesses such as education robots and logistics robots have shown weak growth. In 2025, revenue related to logistics intelligent robots fell 14.6% year over year; the growth rate of education robot business was only 13.7%. These did not form effective performance support and could not offset the fluctuation risks of the humanoid robot business.

More critically, the rapid growth of its humanoid robot business is built on a low base in 2024, and the products have a strong customized nature. To increase subsequent revenue, UBTECH would need to invest a large amount of manpower for differentiated development, making it difficult to achieve large-scale replication. Over the long term, the sustainability of growth is questionable. This structure with a single dependence on the core business exposes UBTECH to greater operational risks when industry competition intensifies and market demand fluctuates.

At present, the humanoid robot track has entered a “global sprint” stage. Competition at home and abroad is growing increasingly fierce, and UBTECH’s leading position is being challenged by multiple parties, with survival pressure continuing to rise.

In the domestic market, Unitree Technology is its most direct competitor, and the gap in strength between the two has been shrinking. In 2025, Unitree Technology turned in an impressive profitability performance: full-year revenue of RMB 1.7 billion, net profit of RMB 288 million, and non-GAAP net profit close to RMB 600 million—already profitable. Its humanoid robot sales reached 5,500 units for the year, with an average price of about RMB 170k per unit. Its gross margin was close to 60%. After calculations, the sales amount of humanoid robots was about RMB 921 million, slightly above UBTECH’s RMB 821 million. Compared with UBTECH’s pricing of RMB 760k per unit, Unitree Technology’s products have a stronger price advantage and are easier to promote at scale.

Apart from Unitree Technology, up-and-coming domestic players have also risen quickly, further intensifying the competitive landscape. Unitree’s “Ziyuan” robot has achieved mass production rollout of 10,000 units of general-purpose embodied robots, and Leju Robotics has also completed a 10,000-unit capacity layout. UBTECH’s plan to mass-produce 10,000 humanoid robots by the end of 2026 no longer has scarcity value; its scalability advantage has been further diluted. Industry insiders say that the unit prices of products from companies such as Unitree and Ziyuan are mostly in the range of RMB 30k to RMB 200k, while UBTECH’s overly high pricing limits market expansion, placing it at a disadvantage in price competition.

In overseas markets, companies such as Tesla’s Optimus and Figure AI focus on industrial scenarios. With deep technical accumulation, strong brand influence, and large-scale production capabilities, they continue to capture global market share, creating significant pressure on UBTECH’s overseas expansion. At the same time, the industry generally believes that the per-unit cost of humanoid robots needs to be reduced to below RMB 150k to be economically viable for large-scale replacement of human labor. However, UBTECH’s current product costs and selling prices are both on the high side, and its insufficient large-scale production capacity has become an important bottleneck restricting its market expansion.

As a forerunner in the humanoid robotics industry, UBTECH has achieved an initial breakthrough in commercialization in 2025 thanks to policy tailwinds, deep technological barriers, and its early advantage in scenarios. But how to hold onto its advantages in the race of the track and break through bottlenecks has become the key question UBTECH urgently needs to answer.

(This article’s viewpoints are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. There are risks in investing; be cautious when entering the market!)

Written by / Fengkou Finance reporter Wang Beibei

Edited by / Fengkou Finance editor Liu Jian