Shanghai-based AgiBot shipped approximately 8,400 humanoid robots in the first half of 2026, capturing 44% of the global market and overtaking Unitree for the top vendor position, according to a report from Smart Analytics Global1,2,3.
Unitree fell to second place with roughly 5,900 units and a 31% market share. Smart Analytics Global puts AgiBot's year-on-year shipment growth at 562%, attributing the surge to the company selling across several product lines rather than a single device. AgiBot's H1 total alone exceeded Unitree's full-year 2025 shipments.
Global humanoid shipments reached approximately 19,100 units from January through June, more than triple the figure from the same period a year earlier. Chinese manufacturers accounted for 97% of those shipments. The next two vendors after AgiBot and Unitree — UBTECH at 5.2% and Leju at 4.9% — are also Chinese.
The report identifies a structural shift in demand. Industrial and commercial deployments — production lines, warehouses, and other environments requiring repetitive physical tasks — made up over 70% of H1 shipments, up from roughly 50% in the first half of 2025. However, Smart Analytics Global notes that high shipment volumes do not yet equate to comparable revenue growth, as manufacturers are actively supplying platforms for pilot projects and application software development.
While China dominates hardware output, experts cited by Semafor say European and American labs are leading in the development of robots' cognitive software — the "brains".
Smart Analytics Global projects industry revenue of around $1.6 billion by the end of 2026, with the market growing to nearly $3 billion in 2027. The firm expects global humanoid shipments to approach 60,000 units by the end of 2026 and projects shipments could reach 500,000 robots by 2030. Morgan Stanley separately forecasts Chinese humanoid robot shipments in 2026 will reach 50,000 units.
Smart Analytics Global identifies several key challenges for the sector: AI model capabilities, precision in manipulation, lack of real-world training data, robot reliability, safety, and cost. The firm does not expect universal humanoids for household tasks to reach significant scale within the next five years.
Both AgiBot and Unitree are preparing to go public. Unitree opened subscriptions for its IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market on Monday, offering shares at 150.80 yuan to raise roughly 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million), with an estimated market capitalization of around 60.99 billion yuan ($9 billion) upon completion. AgiBot is pursuing an IPO later this year in Hong Kong.
Regulatory headwinds may complicate expansion. In July 2026, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission banned imports of new China-made humanoid and quadrupedal robots and some components over national security concerns. Smart Analytics Global also points to uncertainty surrounding the regulation of highly realistic humanoids and human-AI interaction.
ANALYSIS The 97% Chinese share of global humanoid hardware shipments, combined with the U.S. import ban, sets up a bifurcated market in which Chinese vendors dominate volume while facing barriers to the largest Western economies. The concurrent IPO timelines for both AgiBot and Unitree suggest each is racing to capitalize on the shipment surge before competitive dynamics or regulatory friction alter the trajectory.