Shares of China's Unitree Robotics surged 542% in early trade on Wednesday as the humanoid robot maker made its debut on the stock market in Shanghai. The Hangzhou-based robot maker, whose dancing and backflipping machines, have garnered global attention, raised around 6.1 billon yuan or $905 million in its initial public offering, as per its prospectus.
The stock rose to 968.1 yuan apiece after rising to its high of 1,100 yuan earlier. The IPO was backed by Chinese AI company DeepSeek that invested around 140.8 million yuan as per a company filing. The company's existing investors also included Chinese tech giant Tencent.
Unitree's products include bipedal humanoid robots which walk and manipulate objects with dexterous hands, four-legged robots that are utilized for tasks like hazard detection. Unitree, ahead of its listing on Monday, unveiled a new humanoid robot 'Superman', which the company said can jump 2 metre from a standing position and can run at speeds of up to 12.66 metre per second.
The company is the latest high-profile Chinese tech name which has hit Shanghai's STAR Market post last month's memory chipmaker CXMT's listing when its shares had surged 466% on their first day of trade. In June, Morgan Stanley had raised its forecast for China's humanoid robot shipments to 50,000 in 2026, nearly double the previous projection of 28,000.
It estimated the country's humanoid robot market to grow to $15 billion by 2030 from the present $2 billion. Morgan Stanley also estimates pilot projects in China to start moving into broader deployments in the second half of 2026, with full-size humanoids are estimated to account for around 30% of the shipments, increasing to 70% by 2028.