The humanoid robot industry has moved past the demo stage, and the numbers are now coming mostly from China. New data from research firm IDC shows global humanoid robot shipments reached nearly 25,000 units in the first half of 2026, up 432.1% year on year, and Chinese vendors supplied more than 95% of them.
The report, released around September 29-30 and covered by Chinese and international outlets including DigiTimes, puts the market's value above $740 million, up 322.7%. It also shows humanoids moving away from showrooms and research labs and into paid commercial work.
The Headline Numbers
According to IDC's figures:
- Global shipments: close to 25,000 units in H1 2026, up 432.1%
- Market value: more than $740 million, up 322.7%
- China's domestic market: more than 19,000 units, up 426.3%, about 77.9% of global volume
- Chinese vendor share: above 95% of all humanoids shipped worldwide
- Long-term outlook: IDC now expects annual shipments to pass 750,000 units by 2030, roughly 50% higher than its earlier forecast
IDC also tracked a change in who is buying. Research and education, performance and demonstration, and government-funded data-collection centres made up 83.8% of shipments in full-year 2025. In H1 2026 that share fell to 69%, so nearly a third of units now go to other buyers, mostly commercial and industrial customers.
AgiBot Pulls Ahead of Unitree
The vendor ranking has a new leader. IDC places AgiBot first in both shipments and revenue, with more than 8,600 units, about 35% of the global market and over 45% of China's. Unitree, long the best-known Chinese humanoid maker, ranked second, and Booster Robotics third. UBTech posted the fastest growth, with shipments up close to 2,000%. Galbot and Leju were also named among the larger shippers.
Other research firms count differently but agree on the overall picture. Counterpoint Research estimates H1 shipments above 22,000 units, up nearly 300%, with AgiBot at about 9,700 units and a share above 43%, and Unitree at more than 7,000. Smart Analytics Global counts about 19,100 units, up 272%. All three put AgiBot ahead of Unitree, though their totals and their figures for smaller players such as UBTech differ widely. Readers should treat any single vendor number as an estimate.
Why China Is Pulling Away
The concentration in China comes from several reinforcing factors:
- Supply chains: China already dominates the actuators, motors, batteries and sensors that make up much of a humanoid's bill of materials, which keeps costs down.
- State-backed demand: government data-collection centres and subsidised pilots gave vendors early volume while commercial buyers were still evaluating.
- Price pressure: Chinese makers are pushing entry-level humanoids toward consumer-electronics prices. PrimeBOT, for example, has opened Chinese sales at 19,999 yuan.
- Capital markets: Unitree and AgiBot have both been heading toward public listings, giving investors a reason to fund rapid capacity growth.
Western companies such as Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Figure and 1X are pursuing high-value industrial and home use cases, but on IDC's numbers their combined unit volume is still a small fraction of the market.
Why It Matters
Unit volume is how robotics companies learn. Every deployed humanoid produces real-world data on grasping, walking and failure modes, and that data feeds the robot foundation models that will decide which platforms become truly general-purpose. A 95% share of shipments gives Chinese vendors a large and growing advantage in that data.
For buyers, the falling share of demo and research units is the most important signal. It suggests factories, warehouses and service businesses are starting to find paying jobs for humanoids, even if most deployments remain small pilots. For Western policymakers, already arguing over restrictions on Chinese robots, the report will sharpen questions about industrial dependence, much as earlier debates over drones and EV batteries did.
What to Watch
The second half of 2026 will test whether this pace holds. Trade shows are lining up product launches: Astribot brought its $18,000 T1 humanoid to IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh this week, and Seoul hosts an AI Robot Show from October 6 to 8 with six humanoid models on display. If IDC's revised 2030 forecast holds, the industry is still very early, and the race for scale is clearly being led from China.
