Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics released its 2026 interim results on August 28, with its full-size humanoid robot business emerging as its largest source of revenue.
In the first half, total revenue rose 104.2% year-on-year to RMB 1.27 billion (USD 188.5 million). Revenue from full-size embodied humanoid robot products and services surged 1,445% to RMB 590.3 million (USD 87.6 million) from RMB 38.2 million (USD 5.7 million) a year earlier, accounting for 46.5% of group revenue. Sales volume in the category reached 921 units, up 1,946.7%.
The shift in revenue mix also lifted profitability at the gross level. Gross profit increased 160.9% to RMB 566.9 million (USD 84.2 million), while gross margin rose 9.7 percentage points to 44.7%. UBTech attributed the margin improvement mainly to the higher contribution from full-size humanoid robot products and services, which carry higher gross margins.
The company nevertheless remained loss-making. Its net loss narrowed 23.0% year-on-year to RMB 338.8 million (USD 50.3 million), while its adjusted EBITDA loss narrowed to RMB 174.1 million (USD 25.8 million) from RMB 321.8 million (USD 47.8 million) a year earlier.
UBTech also continued to spend heavily on product development. R&D expenses rose 38.9% to RMB 303.1 million (USD 45 million) in the first half, equivalent to 23.9% of revenue. The company said the increase was mainly driven by continued investment in full-size humanoid robots.
Much of that investment is directed toward moving humanoid robots beyond demonstrations and into industrial use.
UBTech said its industrial deployments focus on tasks including material handling, loading and unloading, sorting, palletizing, and depalletizing. During the first half, it validated solutions for several of these applications while combining technologies including teleoperation and vision-language-action (VLA) models to address different industrial tasks.
The company has also been expanding deliveries of its Walker S2 industrial humanoid robot and deployments of its wheeled Cruzr Y1. Its industrial robots have been tested or deployed in sectors including automotive manufacturing, logistics, and aviation. Airbus, for example, acquired a Walker S2 earlier this year as part of a partnership exploring the use of humanoid robots in aircraft manufacturing.
UBTech is broadening its lineup at the same time. In the first half, it launched the Cruzr Y1 for manufacturing and warehousing, the bipedal Walker C1 for commercial services, education, and research, and the U1 series for companionship applications.
The three product families reflect UBTech’s attempt to build across industrial, commercial, and eventually household applications rather than rely on a single market.
Industrial use remains the most developed of the three. UBTech said it is working to move from individual task validation toward larger deployments in which multiple robots can perform longer sequences of work and collaborate on production lines.
Supporting that effort is the company’s artificial intelligence stack.
UBTech released Thinker 1.0, its foundation model for embodied intelligence, in the first half. The company said the model ranked first on nine embodied intelligence leaderboards. It also introduced Thinker-WM, a world model designed to help robots model physical environments and anticipate the outcomes of actions. According to UBTech, Thinker-WM ranked first on the Libero embodied intelligence benchmark during the period.
Its Thinker-VLA model, meanwhile, combines visual perception, language-based instructions, and action generation. UBTech has been applying VLA technology to industrial handling and loading tasks, where robots need to adjust their actions as objects and surroundings change.
The company is also developing BrainNet 2.0 and Co-Agent, technologies intended to coordinate multiple robots. UBTech said the system can divide tasks, schedule operations, share information, and coordinate work among humanoid robots, extending its approach from single-robot autonomy toward multi-robot collaboration.
Data is another part of the strategy. UBTech is building humanoid robot data collection and testing centers and a platform designed to connect data collection, annotation, model training, and deployment. It is also developing a simulation platform that can reconstruct scenarios, generate assets and synthetic data, and test models before deployment on physical robots.
As of June 30, UBTech held 3,112 granted patents, including 530 overseas patents, up 4.2% from the end of 2025.
UBTech is also expanding beyond robot hardware itself.
In the first half, the company completed its acquisition of a 43.01% stake in Shenzhen-listed Zhejiang Fenglong Electric, becoming its controlling shareholder. Fenglong’s financial results have been consolidated into UBTech’s accounts since April, contributing RMB 139.2 million (USD 20.7 million) in revenue from garden machinery, automotive, and hydraulic components during the period.
Separately, UBTech and Chinese GPU developer MetaX established a joint venture to develop and produce chips for embodied intelligence, extending the company’s involvement further into the hardware stack.
UBTech is also working with Siemens on digital tools for robot design and manufacturing. The partnership is intended to support UBTech’s effort to scale production. UBTech has set an annual production target of 10,000 full-size humanoid robots for 2026.
For the second half, UBTech plans to continue expanding Walker S industrial models while developing its Walker C and U1 series for commercial, educational, and household applications. It also plans to release an upgraded Thinker-WM 2.0 world model and continue improving its VLA and multi-robot coordination technologies.
This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Stone Jin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.74 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 31, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.