Chinese enterprises remain highly willing to purchase humanoid robots, but they are becoming increasingly hard-nosed about the numbers. The latest Morgan Stanley survey shows that the companies surveyed generally want the acceptable price pushed below 100,000 yuan and require payback within three years, meaning the pace of commercial deployment is clearly slowing.
According to a trading desk report, Morgan Stanley's AlphaWise platform conducted its annual survey of 94 executives in China's manufacturing, industrial and services sectors in September 2026. The results show that 64% of respondents plan to launch pilot or scaled projects for wheeled or legged humanoid robots within the next three years, slightly up from 62% in 2025. However, the expected deployment timelines for all types of robots have shifted back by roughly a year, with the proportion expecting to complete deployment by the end of 2027 falling sharply — composite robots dropped from 64% to 50%, wheeled humanoid robots from 58% to 36%, and legged humanoid robots from 41% to 22%. Cost pressure is the core driver behind this shift. 72% of potential buyers believe a unit price below 100,000 yuan is necessary for broad adoption, up significantly from 53% in 2025; 82% of respondents require a payback period of no more than three years, with the average acceptable payback period at about 26 months. Morgan Stanley maintains a positive long-term demand view on the robotics industry and, at the stock level, favors component suppliers such as Hengli Hydraulic, Leaderdrive and Shuanghuan Driveline.
High willingness but right-shifting timelines, limited initial deployment scale
The survey results show that Chinese companies' purchasing interest in humanoid robots has not faded, but the path from intent to actual deployment is lengthening. Among the 94 institutions surveyed, 60 (64%) were identified as "potential buyers," a slight increase from 62% in 2025. However, the overall right-shift in deployment timelines reveals more cautious market sentiment. In the 2026 survey, only 16% of respondents planned to launch projects by the end of 2026, 23% by the end of 2027, and 24% by the end of 2028; in the 2025 survey, 29% of respondents had expected to complete deployment by the end of 2026. Initial installation scale is also small. Even by the end of 2028, among respondents expecting to deploy composite robots, 46% planned to install only 1 to 10 units, 16% planned 11 to 50 units, and 13% planned more than 50 units; expectations for wheeled and legged humanoid robots are even more conservative, showing a pattern of "extensive experimentation, cautious expansion." Based on this, Morgan Stanley estimates China's humanoid robot shipments at about 50,000 units in 2026 and 100,000 units in 2027, potentially reaching 446,000 units by 2030.
Cost threshold tightens, ROI becomes core procurement standard
Economic viability has jumped to become the top factor in corporate procurement decisions. The survey shows that 62% of potential buyers list "high upfront costs" as the biggest challenge to adopting humanoid robots, up further from 58% in 2025; the importance of ROI (return on investment) rose 16 percentage points to 80%, greatly narrowing the gap with reliability/safety (85%) and functionality (83%). On price expectations, 45% of respondents believe a unit price between 50,000 and 100,000 yuan is necessary for broad adoption, up sharply from 28% in 2025; the proportion who see 100,000 to 200,000 yuan as feasible plunged from 40% to 18%. Overall, 72% of potential buyers set their acceptable price ceiling below 100,000 yuan, compared with only 53% in 2025. On payback requirements, 82% of respondents require a payback period of no more than three years, with 38% seeing two to three years as the maximum acceptable period and an average of about 26 months. 65% of respondents require humanoid robots to have a payback period equal to or shorter than other automation investments, reflecting that companies have not relaxed their financial discipline toward this emerging technology. Notably, manufacturing respondents show relatively higher willingness to pay, with 25% accepting a price range of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan and 15% accepting more than 200,000 yuan.
Manufacturing and logistics dominate application scenarios, demand for multi-functionality rises
Manufacturing and logistics/warehousing remain the most promising initial application areas for humanoid robots. The survey shows that 90% of potential buyers list manufacturing as a deployment scenario (79% in 2025), logistics/warehousing ranks second at 85%, and R&D scenarios enter the top three at 79%. In terms of specific application scenarios, material handling (82%), packaging and palletizing (78%), and machine tending and operation (69%) rank as the top three manufacturing applications. Respondents also specifically mentioned replacing human labor in dangerous or hard-to-access environments, including oil and gas field operations, high-temperature heat treatment processes, and inspections in hazardous areas. At the same time, corporate requirements for robot functionality are shifting from single-task to multi-functional. 70% of respondents expect humanoid robots to perform limited multi-functional tasks, up sharply from 49% in 2025, surpassing demand for a single specific task (50%, down from 72% in 2025). However, current product satisfaction continues to decline — only 18% of potential buyers are satisfied with the performance of existing humanoid robots, down from 23% in 2025, while 28% express dissatisfaction.
Integrator competitive landscape becomes more fragmented, Unitree Technology's lead narrows
In terms of brand choice, Unitree Technology remains the most closely watched integrator, but its lead has clearly narrowed. The survey shows that 47% of potential buyers have engaged with or evaluated Unitree Technology's products, down 13 percentage points from 60% in 2025; the proportion planning to purchase Unitree Technology products within the next three years is 32%, down sharply from 60% in 2025. DeepRobotics and UBTECH Robotics tie for second with 17% engagement each. In terms of product ratings, DeepRobotics received the highest "excellent/good" ratings across all eight evaluation dimensions, including application functionality (89%) and reliability/safety (78%). Morgan Stanley cautions that because the sample size for each brand's ratings is small (nine each for DeepRobotics and UBTECH Robotics, and 25 for Unitree Technology), the above results should be interpreted cautiously and should not be taken as a definitive verdict on the merits of commercial platforms. Morgan Stanley believes that integrator choices will increasingly concentrate on specific application scenarios, and manufacturers that can provide reliable solutions in factory system interoperability, maintainability, and quantifiable productivity improvement will have an advantage over competitors focused on general-purpose demonstrations.
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