A new industry analysis indicates the global humanoid robotics market has entered a decisive period for scaling commercial deployments. Research tracking humanoid robot shipments shows that worldwide volumes surpassed 22,000 units during the first half of 2026, representing a year-over-year surge of nearly 300% compared to the same period in 2025.
Among manufacturers, Zhiyuan continues to hold the top position in global humanoid robot shipments, delivering approximately 9,700 units in the first six months, capturing more than 43% of the market share. The company remains on track to achieve its target of exceeding 10 billion yuan in annual revenue by 2027. Its three main product lines — Yuanzheng, Jingling, and Lingxi — are developing in a balanced manner, with the Lingxi X2 spawning multiple commercial variants tailored for entertainment performances, guided tours, retail assistance, research and education, and data collection. The Lingxi series has gained particularly strong traction in the domestic entertainment and performance rental market. Meanwhile, the Jingling series has made substantial headway in industrial applications, with deployments at manufacturing facilities through partnerships with LONGCHEER (09611) and JOYSON ELEC (00699). The Jingling G2 cluster is now performing hands-on tasks on production lines in consumer electronics and automotive components factories.
During the same period, Yushu Technology Co., Ltd. (688836.SH) continued to rely on its G1 series as the primary driver of humanoid robot shipments, maintaining a strong position in the scientific research and education sector. The company delivered over 7,000 humanoid robots in the first half of the year, accounting for 31% of the market. Leveraging its sustained profitability, Yushu has successfully listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board, reflecting robust capital market confidence in the long-term growth potential of the humanoid robotics segment.
Entering 2026, Galbot has experienced rapid growth in humanoid robot shipments, delivering more than 1,100 units in the first half of the year, representing roughly 5% of the market. In addition to collaborating with Meituan on smart pharmacy solutions and accelerating nationwide deployment of its "Galaxy Capsule" retail concept, Galbot has developed specialized VLA models for real-world industrial scenarios and is actively expanding partnerships across manufacturing sectors. In January 2026, the company launched the Galbot S1, a wheeled dual-arm robot designed for industrial and logistics heavy-load applications, followed by the completion of production line acceptance testing at CATL in March, demonstrating its ability to rapidly adapt to new operational environments.
Ranking fourth is publicly listed humanoid robotics company UBTECH ROBOTICS (09880), which delivered approximately 1,000 humanoid robots in the first half of the year, capturing around 4.4% of the market. UBTECH's customer base is concentrated in the automotive and 3C manufacturing sectors, and management has significantly raised its 2026 shipment guidance for the Walker S series from an initial 2,000-3,000 units to 5,000 units. The company has also introduced a consumer-focused sub-brand, UWORLD, targeting emotional companionship, education, and entertainment applications for household use.
Leju Robotics shipped 650 humanoid robots in the first half of the year, accounting for 2.9% of the market. Its Kuafu series is deployed across multiple national humanoid robot data collection and training centers, while the company is actively expanding partnerships in the industrial manufacturing sector.
In terms of applications, entertainment performances and scientific research/data collection still account for the majority of global humanoid robot shipments, although their combined share has eased to just above 60%. Within this context, there remains significant real-world demand for compact humanoid robots. Despite new entrants competing in this space, the Zhiyuan Lingxi series and Yushu G1 series remain the dominant players in this market segment, supported by mature toolchains and content creation ecosystems. Guided tours and retail assistance applications rank third in shipment volume, representing approximately 19% of the market, with physical retail environments such as unmanned pharmacies serving as important data training grounds. Meanwhile, intelligent manufacturing and warehouse logistics have also seen their market shares increase, reaching 13% and 5%, respectively.
Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, more pilot projects in both the service and industrial sectors are expected to transition into batch deployment phases. Humanoid robots are gradually being deployed on a regular basis at transportation hubs, while automotive manufacturers are expanding humanoid robot integration across production, sales, and after-sales processes. In 3C manufacturing and logistics warehousing, practical solutions tailored to real production conditions are emerging for standardized tasks such as material handling, sorting, and inspection. As world model technology becomes integrated into existing VLA architectures, a significant breakthrough window is opening for humanoid robot intelligence and task generalization capabilities.
In recent months, the fusion of world models with VLA systems has emerged as a new technological paradigm. By incorporating world models as supporting components, a novel end-to-end Transformer architecture can not only generate actions but also predict continuous states under long-horizon tasks. This architecture addresses the shortcomings of VLA systems in learning physical rules and reasoning, offering greater robustness in dynamic environments and enabling few-shot or even zero-shot generalization capabilities.
Zhiyuan is emerging as a key force in scaling humanoid robot deployments across industrial and commercial service sectors. At the Zhiyuan Partner Conference (APC 2026) held in April, the company unveiled its comprehensive strategy spanning products, models, data, ecosystem co-building, and new business models. The Yuanzheng A3 and Jingling G2 series completed iterative releases, while the next-generation embodied intelligence foundation model GO-3 is progressing smoothly and is scheduled for official launch this autumn. The company's RaaS model, exemplified by the Qingtian Rental service, lowers the barrier to commercial adoption of humanoid robots. Additionally, Mifeng Technology has been positioned as a one-stop Physical AI data platform integrating collection and governance. To advance embodied intelligence into the "deployment phase," Zhiyuan has introduced seven productivity solution packages. The company's productization capabilities have now moved beyond the "from 0 to 1" validation stage and entered the "from 1 to N" replication phase.
Industry analysts at Counterpoint Research believe that as more manufacturers pursue comprehensive ecosystem development in the humanoid robotics sector, the industry will experience faster and healthier growth. The research firm projects global humanoid robot shipments to surpass 50,000 units in 2026, representing year-over-year growth of 210%. Looking ahead over the next five years, service and industrial applications will succeed entertainment performances and research/data collection as the core engines driving demand growth for humanoid robots. Furthermore, the competitive edge of humanoid robot manufacturers will shift from simply competing on model capabilities and production expansion speed to building closed-loop capabilities encompassing advanced models, vertical scenario implementation, data system construction, and rapid model iteration.
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