Unitree Erupts on Shanghai Debut: 629% First-Day Pop Briefly Makes the Humanoid Robot Maker Worth $66 Billion

Unitree Robotics, the Hangzhou-based company also known as Yushu Technology, made one of the most explosive stock market debuts in China’s history on Wednesday, August 19. Shares opened at 1,100 yuan on the Shanghai STAR Market — up 629% from the 150.80 yuan IPO price — briefly valuing the humanoid robot maker at roughly 445 billion yuan (about US$66 billion) before settling around 883.9 yuan. The rally delivered the largest first-day gain for a new STAR Market listing this year, and it happened on a day when the broader STAR Composite index actually fell 6.1%.

The debut caps a two-week frenzy that began when Unitree priced its IPO on August 6. The company sold 40.45 million new shares — about 10% of its equity — at 150.80 yuan each, raising 6.1 billion yuan (US$905 million) and setting an initial valuation near 61 billion yuan (US$9 billion). Retail demand then shattered records: the offering was oversubscribed more than 8,000 times, the largest oversubscription in STAR Market history, according to Reuters.

From $1.7 billion to $66 billion in two years

The market’s verdict is staggering when set against Unitree’s recent private-market marks. In July 2024, the company was valued at roughly 12 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion). The IPO pricing already represented a fivefold jump from that figure. Wednesday’s opening print pushed the peak valuation to roughly 37 times the 2024 mark — all in about 25 months.

One of the biggest winners is Meituan, the food-delivery giant whose 8.7% pre-IPO stake returned more than 70 times its investment at the intraday high. Early backers including an arm of Alibaba-affiliated entities and several Chinese venture firms also saw paper returns that rank among the year’s best in global tech.

The numbers behind the hype

Unlike many speculative debuts, Unitree arrives with real revenue and a genuinely dominant market position. Its prospectus shows revenue climbing from 123 million yuan in 2022 to 159 million yuan in 2023, 392 million yuan in 2024, and 1.708 billion yuan (about US$240 million) in 2025 — a 335% year-over-year surge. More than 40% of its sales come from overseas markets, an unusual profile for a STAR Market lister.

The company shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, making it the world’s top-shipping humanoid manufacturer, with total mass-production output across all robot categories exceeding 6,000 units. Its product line — the G1, H1, H2 humanoids and the R1 robot, which starts at just US$4,290 — spans everything from research platforms to entertainment units. Unitree even issued a public clarification insisting its 2025 humanoid shipments topped 5,500 units, underscoring how closely the market watches these figures.

The growth story has a wrinkle: first-quarter 2026 revenue rose 68.5% to 422.8 million yuan, but profit excluding one-off items fell 52.6% to 40.3 million yuan as the company poured money into research and development. Unitree is one of the few humanoid makers that is profitable at all on an adjusted basis — but it is deliberately trading margin for scale.

Why the market is paying 200x revenue

At the intraday peak of about US$66 billion, Unitree was trading at well over 200 times its 2025 revenue — a multiple that assumes the humanoid robotics market is about to go vertical. There is real evidence behind that assumption. According to Wood Mackenzie data cited by CNBC, average humanoid robot prices have plunged 93% between 2020 and 2025, falling to around US$58,000, and Unitree’s aggressive pricing has been a primary driver of that collapse. Its second-generation humanoid launched at roughly US$16,000, and the R1 undercuts everything else on the market.

Chinese policy has amplified the momentum. Beijing has designated humanoid robotics a strategic industry, and local governments from Shanghai to Shenzhen have seeded deployment programs. The STAR Market itself was designed to channel domestic capital into exactly this kind of hard-tech company — and the Unitree listing is being read as a template for a queue of robotics startups waiting to go public.

The competitive context matters too. Tesla is racing to industrialize its Optimus humanoid, and Western firms figure prominently in the high end of the market. But Unitree’s cost structure — built on China’s dense electronics supply chain around Hangzhou — has let it hit price points no American or European rival can currently approach. Even the US military has indirectly engaged with the ecosystem: reports earlier this month revealed American-funded research projects using Unitree quadrupeds, despite the geopolitical friction.

The risks behind the record

A 629% first-day pop is also a warning sign. STAR Market rules held the stock to an initial 100% band before letting it run free in the afternoon session, and shares retreated from the 1,100-yuan open to close near 883.9 yuan — an 20% fade from the high that suggests even euphoric buyers hit pause. Chinese state media have gently cautioned retail investors about chasing robotics concept stocks, and the fact that the debut came on a day the broader STAR index dropped 6.1% shows the surge is idiosyncratic, not a market-wide risk-on move.

The valuation also embeds enormous execution risk. Unitree’s margins are compressing as it spends on R&D; the humanoid category remains pre-revenue at scale for industrial applications; and geopolitical exposure runs both ways — over 40% of Unitree’s revenue comes from overseas, including markets where Chinese robotics firms face growing scrutiny.

Still, Wednesday’s session marks a milestone for the industry. A humanoid robot company is now among China’s most valuable newly listed tech firms, capitalized at levels once reserved for platform giants. For robotics founders and investors worldwide, the message from Shanghai’s trading floor is unambiguous: capital markets have decided that general-purpose robots are no longer a science project — they are an industrial category with a price tag, a supply chain, and now a stock chart.

Whether that chart justifies 200x revenue will take years to resolve. What is already settled is that Unitree’s debut is the most important public-market event in robotics history to date, and the benchmark every subsequent humanoid listing — in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or New York — will be measured against.