Unitree Robotics IPO: $50 Billion First Day on STAR Market [Update]

The Unitree Robotics IPO delivered the largest first-day gain of any Chinese listing so far in 2026. According to STAR Market trading data, shares in Unitree (688836.SH) opened at ¥1,100 on Shanghai's STAR Market, a 629% premium to the ¥150.80 issue price, and closed at ¥845, up 460.34%. The August 19 debut, whose listing process we previously covered, left the first humanoid-robot company on a mainland Chinese exchange worth ¥341.8 billion (about $50 billion) at the close, after peaking near ¥445 billion ($66 billion) in the opening minutes.

That single session turned humanoid robotics into a publicly priced asset class for the first time, at multiples that owe more to scarcity than to earnings. At the issue price Unitree carried a diluted static price-to-sales ratio of 35.89x on 2025 revenue, already above the average of its industry peers; at the closing price that same metric sits near 200x trailing sales. Those are levels normally reserved for software-style compounding, while the company is a hardware maker. Its prospectus shows revenue grew from ¥159 million in 2023 to ¥1.699 billion in 2025.

How the Unitree Robotics IPO traded

The Unitree Robotics IPO raised ¥6.1 billion (about $905 million), overshooting the initial ¥4.2 billion target after the retail tranche ran more than 8,000x oversubscribed, a record for the STAR Market, according to the prospectus and exchange data. At the issue price the company was valued at roughly ¥61 billion, the ~$9 billion level at which the deal was marketed, and the day-one close multiplied that valuation about 5.6 times in a single session. Only 30.09 million of the 404 million post-issuance shares, 7.44% of total capital, were free to trade without lock-up restrictions on day one, per the prospectus.

Sources: Unitree's prospectus; STAR Market trading data.

The mechanics of the pop deserve scrutiny. A free float of 7.44% means the opening gain was set by a thin supply of shares against overwhelming demand. The 629% open is the biggest first-day gain for any new listing in China this year, and the 85.28% turnover rate shows most of the free float changed hands during the session, a signature of speculative churn rather than patient accumulation. First-day volume reached ¥23.16 billion, according to exchange data.

What the underlying business shows

Unitree's numbers are real but early. The company, officially registered as Yushu Technology Co. Ltd., says it shipped more than 5,500 pure humanoid units in 2025, the most of any maker worldwide, and its prospectus and company statements show revenue grew more than tenfold in two years, from ¥159 million in 2023 to ¥1.699 billion in 2025. Days before listing it unveiled a high-speed humanoid called "Superman," timed to the opening of the World Robot Conference in Beijing, and the use of proceeds targets intelligent-robot large-model research, body-performance upgrades, and manufacturing-base construction.

The competitive fight in the category is moving toward the consumer segment, where the robots that built Unitree's fame online could become household products rather than demonstration pieces. That is exactly where the valuation gets tested: consumer robotics has a history of slow adoption curves, and the revenue base supporting the current multiple is still weighted toward industrial and demonstration demand. The Superman reveal and the conference timing are part of a deliberate narrative of robots moving from labs and factory floors into everyday life; the market bought that narrative on day one, and the next earnings reports will have to show shipments growing from the 5,500-unit base fast enough to make the multiple look less heroic.

The growth itself is steep but young. Two-year revenue expansion from ¥159 million to ¥1.699 billion implies a compound rate of roughly 227% a year, the kind of trajectory that supports premium multiples in theory. In practice that growth came from a low base and from a market where corporate and government demand, not household purchases, still dominates.

Governance adds another layer of risk for public holders. Founder Wang Xingxing retains 68.78% of voting power through a dual-class share structure, Meituan is the largest external institutional shareholder at 8.68% post-IPO, and the National Social Security Fund is the largest strategic investor, an explicit state endorsement that private rivals cannot match, according to the prospectus. Meituan's presence ties one of China's biggest delivery platforms directly to the humanoid supply chain, but minority holders get economic exposure to a business whose strategic direction stays entirely in the founder's hands.

A benchmark for every rival

The Unitree Robotics IPO's lasting effect may be the yardstick it sets for the rest of the category. Unitree listed at roughly a $9 billion valuation and finished day one near $50 billion, a peak print above larger Chinese tech firms such as Baidu and JD.com and above U.S. rivals like Figure AI. Every competitor in humanoid robotics, from Figure AI and Agibot to Fourier and UBTech, now has a public comp trading at levels their own revenue cannot support. That strengthens the hand of well-capitalized leaders in private fundraising and pressures smaller players to defend similar numbers with far smaller revenue bases.

The trade-off is between narrative and numbers. China's industrial policy has turned humanoid robots into a flagship of the Sino-American technology rivalry, and that state-backed push, plus the record retail bid, carried the stock to its opening gain. What the multiple does not price in is the cost of scaling prototypes into volume production, the staged release of locked-up shares, and whether consumer demand for humanoids arrives on the timeline the valuation assumes.

The pop also validates the STAR Market's role as the preferred venue for the next wave of Chinese robotics listings. A record retail bid, the year's biggest first-day gain, and a flagship name all landed on the exchange built to channel capital into technology companies, which raises the odds that rivals follow Unitree's path rather than seeking offshore listings.

For a buyer, the honest description is a story-priced stock with real but modest fundamentals: a ¥341.8 billion market capitalization on ¥1.699 billion of 2025 revenue. For the industry, the debut matters more than the share price. The Unitree Robotics IPO has become the reference point against which every future humanoid-robotics round, public or private, will be negotiated, and it has given China's robotics champions a public currency that no U.S. counterpart yet has.

The price discovery is only beginning. The roughly 92.6% of shares still under lock-up will become tradable in stages, and the next two quarters of shipment numbers will show whether a 5,500-unit base can compound toward a valuation that assumes it will. Until supply stops being the binding constraint, the Unitree Robotics IPO's day-one close is an auction of scarcity more than a verdict on the business.

Why this matters

The Unitree Robotics IPO converts a speculative private-market bet on humanoid robots into a public benchmark, and an unusually expensive one. Whatever the share price does next, the listing has fixed the reference point for the whole category and placed China's state-backed robotics push at the center of the global race to lead it.

See our earlier coverage: Unitree IPO Draws 5,526x Retail Demand in Shanghai's First Humanoid Robot Listing

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• Unitree IPO Draws 5,526x Retail Demand in Shanghai's First Humanoid Robot Listing
• Unitree IPO Prices at 219x Earnings as Humanoid Robotics Gets a Daily Market Test [Update]

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Researched and cross-referenced against primary sources by the Bytevyte editorial team. This article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the Bytevyte editorial team.