Arya News - Unitree shares surge as much as 620 percent amid enthusiasm for burgeoning field of human-like robots.
China’s Unitree Robotics has soared in its market debut, a sign of investors’ confidence in Chinese innovation in the burgeoning field of human-like robots.
Shares of Unitree surged more than 620 percent on Wednesday as it began trading in Shanghai, lifting the Hangzhou-based company’s market capitalisation to as high as 445 billion yuan ($66bn).
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Unitree, whose main competitors include China’s AgiBot and US-based Tesla and Boston Dynamics, had priced its initial public offering at 50.8 yuan per share for a company valuation of about 61 billion yuan ($9bn).
The landmark IPO marked the first listing of a humanoid robotics company in mainland China.
Unitree, founded in 2016 by engineer Wang Xingxing, is one of China’s leading makers of humanoid robots, with its demonstrations of human-like figures performing dancing and martial arts routines capturing widespread attention.
Last year, Unitree reported shipping more than 5,500 humanoid robots to customers worldwide, making the company a leading player in commercialising the frontier technology.
Unitree unveiled its latest humanoid robot on Monday, a model dubbed Superman that is marketed as being capable of jumping two metres high and running 12.66 metres per second.
Rinat Mirzaitov, the founder of Humanoid Analytics, said the excitement around Unitree reflects its prominent position in a field with few serious challengers.
“It is one of the few companies in humanoid robotics with genuine revenue, profitability and meaningful production volume,” Mirzaitov told Al Jazeera.
Mirzaitov said that while Unitree is among the strongest players in the areas of research, education and development, it does not dominate the entire humanoid market.
“Its main challenge is turning hardware and manufacturing leadership into application and workflow leadership,” he said.
Robotics have become a major front in the battle for tech supremacy between the United States and China.
Last month, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced a ban on imports of Chinese-manufactured humanoid robots, citing national security risks.
China controls about three-quarters of the global market for humanoid robots and autonomous vehicles, according to JP Morgan.
Worldwide sales of humanoid robots are projected to reach $300bn by 2035, up from $2bn in 2025, according to financial industry analyses cited by JP Morgan.