Unitree's 100-yuan expense-approval scandal is really about China's robotics investment reset
yongqianme · x · 2026-09-03
Tracing the viral report (Caijing, Aug 31) that Unitree requires CEO Wang Xingxing to approve expenses over 100 yuan — which the company called partly untrue — the author lays out verifiable fundamentals: IPO on the STAR Market at 150.80 yuan (≈61B market cap), peak near 1,100 yuan (≈445B) before halving to 550; 2025 revenue 1.7B with 590M net profit; 5,500+ humanoids shipped in 2025, with Unitree (5,900) and Zhiyuan (8,400) dominating H1 2026 shipments; and 73.6% of humanoid revenue from research/education vs. only 9% industrial. The takeaway: the scandal targets Unitree as the benchmark — its extreme cost control underpins 60% gross margins and the 99K-yuan G1 price — and signals new rules in China's embodied-AI investment race.
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