Shares of Unitree Robotics surged 629 percent above their IPO price on their Shanghai trading debut on August 19, giving China's best-known humanoid robot maker a market capitalisation of about 445 billion yuan, or roughly US$66 billion. The Hangzhou-based company, listed on the tech-focused Star Market, becomes the first publicly traded humanoid robot maker on a mainland Chinese exchange.
A record retail scramble
The stock opened at 1,100 yuan, up from an IPO price of 150.80 yuan, before pulling back to trade below 900 yuan in the morning session. Nearly 9.8 million retail investment accounts competed for just 9.7 million shares in the online tranche, leaving a final allocation rate of only 0.018 percent. Unitree raised about 6.1 billion yuan by selling 40.45 million shares, or 10 percent of its enlarged share capital. The offering valued the company at roughly 61 billion yuan before trading began.
Who bought in
Strategic placements pulled in some of China's biggest tech and state-linked names. AI start-up DeepSeek and Tencent Holdings joined alongside China National Petroleum, China Southern Power Grid, China Telecom, Citic Securities and the National Council for Social Security Fund. DeepSeek alone invested about 140.8 million yuan, cementing an unusually tight link between the country's most-watched AI lab and its humanoid-robot flagship.
Perfect timing with the World Robot Conference
Unitree's debut lands on the opening day of the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing, which runs through Sunday. The event has drawn a wave of humanoid product launches and industry announcements, and puts fresh attention on rising Chinese peers such as Robotera, AgiBot and LimX Dynamics. Unitree already ships lower-cost robots including the G1 humanoid and its just-unveiled Superman research platform, and has told investors it produced more than 18,000 bipedal robots cumulatively before listing.
What it says about the market
The 8,000-times oversubscription — the largest in Star Market history — is as much a statement about Chinese retail appetite for humanoid names as it is about Unitree itself. Analysts note that valuations across the sector are stretching well ahead of revenue, but companies like Unitree, Robotera and Deep Robotics are also demonstrating fast production ramps and expanding commercial pipelines.
Reporting based on coverage from the South China Morning Post, Bloomberg, CNBC and Caixin.