Sales of intelligent humanoid robots on JD.com jumped 700% year-over-year during this year's Double 11 shopping festival, the e-commerce platform's data showed, while transaction value for robotic arms and dexterous hands rose more than tenfold. The figures, covering the promotional window from October 9 through November 11, mark one of the clearest signs yet that humanoid robots are starting to move as a genuine, if still niche, consumer category in China.
Beijing-based Songyan Power took the top spot in both units sold and revenue in JD's humanoid robot category. Its Little Bumi, a roughly 94-centimeter bipedal robot priced at 9,998 yuan — about $1,400, reportedly the cheapest full humanoid on the market — saw its Lite version grow 142.3% month-over-month and its Pro version grow 45.5%. Unitree, Zhiyuan Robotics, Shangwei Qiyuan and Wujie Power rounded out the rest of the top ten sellers.
Who's actually buying these robots
Reference data from June's 618 shopping festival, used as a proxy for buyer makeup, shows consumer purchases account for 60% to 65% of sales, with institutional and business buyers making up the rest. Among individual consumers, 75% to 80% are male and 70% to 75% are between 26 and 45 years old — a profile that skews heavily toward hobbyists, developers and short-video creators rather than mainstream households.
That skew matters because the headline growth rate, while dramatic, is measured against a very small base. Public data isn't sufficient to confirm exactly how many humanoid units JD actually moved in absolute terms, and a Songyan Power representative acknowledged it's too early to report return rates, since large promotional orders are still working through fulfillment and the company can't yet track how many buyers are repeat customers under JD's sales model.
The real test comes after the sale
Away from consumer units, JD's broader robotics push showed up in logistics: sorting robots from Xingdong Jiyuan deployed across China Post and SF Express facilities hit a peak of 1,500 items processed per hour during the shopping period. That industrial side of the business — where buyers are logistics operators rather than individual enthusiasts — looks far closer to steady commercial use than the consumer humanoid category does.
Chinese financial media covering the festival framed the sales spike as a test the industry hasn't finished taking: strong order numbers prove there's curiosity and some willingness to pay, but whether that translates into durable demand depends on whether makers can deliver units on time, support them after purchase, and build cost structures that don't rely on promotional pricing to move volume, according to ChainCatcher.