Counterpoint: The global humanoid robot industry is in a critical window for large-scale commercial implementation

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Counterpoint published an article stating that currently, the global humanoid robot industry is in a critical window for large-scale commercial implementation. Counterpoint Research's humanoid robot research shows that in the first half of 2026, global humanoid robot shipments exceeded 22,000 units, an increase of nearly 300% compared to the same period in 2025, maintaining a good momentum of rapid growth.

Share of global humanoid robot shipments by manufacturer in the first half of 2026

Among them, Zhiyuan still tops the global shipping list for humanoid robots. It shipped about 9,700 units in the first half of the year, accounting for more than 43%, and continues to advance towards the goal of breaking 10 billion yuan in revenue by 2027. Its three product lines, Expedition, Genie, and Lingxi, have been developed in a balanced manner. Among them, Lingxi X2 has spawned multiple commercial versions, suitable for various application scenarios such as entertainment, guided shopping, scientific research and education, and data collection. The series is widely used in the domestic entertainment and commercial performance rental market. Furthermore, the Genie series has made substantial progress in the industrial field. Through cooperation with Longqi Technology (09611) and Joyson Electronics (00699), the Genie G2 cluster has landed in consumer electronics and auto parts manufacturing production lines and carried out practical operations.

In the first half of the year, Yushu Technology (688836.SH) humanoid robots were still the main shippers of the G1 series, which continued to occupy an advantageous position on the scientific research and education circuit. In total, more than 7,000 humanoid robots were shipped in half a year, accounting for 31% of the market. With continued profitability, Yushu has successfully landed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board, reflecting the capital market's high recognition of the future growth space of the humanoid robot circuit.

Entering 2026, the shipment volume of Galaxy's general-purpose humanoid robots ushered in rapid growth, with cumulative shipments exceeding 1,100 units in the first half of the year, accounting for about 5%. In addition to cooperating with Meituan smart pharmacies and speeding up the deployment of the “Galaxy Space Capsule” across the country, Galaxy GM is developing a dedicated VLA model for real industrial scenarios and continues to expand its partners in the field of industrial manufacturing. In January 2026, Galaxy GM launched the wheeled dual-arm Galbot S1 for industrial and logistics heavy load scenarios. It was immediately announced in March that it had completed production line inspection in the Ningde Era, demonstrating Galaxy GM's ability to quickly adapt to the new operating environment.

In fourth place is the humanoid robot listed company Preferential Choice (09880). Its delivery volume of humanoid robots reached the level of 1,000 units in the first half of the year, accounting for about 4.4%. Preferred customers focus on automotive, 3C manufacturing, etc. Management has drastically raised the Walker S Series 2026 shipping guidelines, from 2000-3000 units to 5,000 units. In addition, Preferred Choice also launched a sub-brand for consumers, UWORLD (UWORLD), which focuses on family scenarios such as emotional companionship, education and entertainment. Leju Robotics shipped 650 humanoid robots in the first half of the year, accounting for 2.9%. Its Kuabu series has been deployed at many humanoid robot data collection and training centers across the country. At the same time, the company is actively expanding partners in the field of industrial manufacturing.

In terms of application, although the share of entertainment and commercial performance, science and education digital acquisition in global humanoid robot shipments has declined, the total share is still over 60%. In this context, there is a high actual demand for small-sized humanoid robots in the market. Despite competition for new products, with a perfect tool chain and content creation ecosystem, the Zhiyuan Lingxi series and the Yushu G1 series are still the main forces in this market segment. Humanoid robots for guided shopping apps ranked third in shipments, accounting for about 19%. Offline retail scenarios, including unmanned pharmacies, have become an important data training ground. In the same period, the market share of intelligent manufacturing and warehousing and logistics also increased, reaching 13% and 5%, respectively.

Share of global humanoid robot shipments by application scenario in the first half of 2026

In the second half of 2026, more early pilot projects in the service and industrial sectors will enter the mass deployment phase. Humanoid robots in transportation hubs are gradually being deployed on a regular basis, and car manufacturers are gradually promoting the deployment of humanoid robots in all aspects of production, sales, and after-sales. In 3C manufacturing, logistics and warehousing scenarios, implementation solutions that can be adapted to actual production conditions are emerging for standardized operations such as handling, sorting, and inspection. As world model technology is incorporated into existing VLA architectures, humanoid robot intelligence and task generalization capabilities ushered in an important breakthrough window.

In recent months, the fusion of the world model and VLA has gradually become a new technological paradigm. Using the world model as a supporting component, the new end-to-end Transformer architecture can not only output actions, but also predict continuous states under long-range tasks. This architecture addresses VLA's shortcomings in physical rule learning and reasoning, has greater robustness in dynamic environments, and enables generalization capabilities with few or zero samples.

Zhiyuan is becoming an important disruptor in large-scale deployment of humanoid robots in the industrial and commercial service fields. At the Zhiyuan Partner Conference (APC 2026) held in April this year, Zhiyuan focused on disclosing its multi-dimensional layout, such as products, models, data, ecological co-construction, and a new business model: Expedition A3 and Genie G2 series completed iterative release; the self-developed next generation self-developed smart pedestal model GO-3 is progressing smoothly and will be officially launched this fall; the RaaS model represented by DynaSky Rent lowers the threshold for commercial implementation of humanoid robots, and positions Probe Technology as a one-stop physical AI integrating data collection and governance Data platforms. Furthermore, in order to promote embodied intelligence into the “deployment state” development stage, Zhiyuan launched seven major productivity solutions. Zhiyuan's productization capabilities have crossed the “0 to 1” verification stage and entered the “1 to N” replication stage. Counterpoint Research believes that as more manufacturers lay out the humanoid robot industry ecosystem in a comprehensive manner, the industry will usher in faster and healthier development.

Counterpoint Research expects global humanoid robot shipments to exceed 50,000 units in 2026, an increase of 210% over the previous year. Looking ahead to the next five years, the service industry and industrial scene will continue to be the core engine driving the growth in demand for humanoid robots, as well as entertainment, science and education. At the same time, the core competitiveness of humanoid robot manufacturers will shift from simply competing for model capabilities and the speed of capacity expansion to creating closed-loop capabilities covering advanced models, vertical scene implementation, data system construction, and rapid model iteration.