Morgan Stanley raises its target for China’s humanlike robot shipments to 50,000

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley has yet again raised its forecast for the humanoid robot shipments from China in 2026.

The bank started 2026 predicting 14,000 Chinese humanoid robot shipments. By early spring, it doubled that to 28,000. 

Now, Morgan Stanley expects 50,000 humanoid robots to ship from China this year, citing the quick pace at which Chinese manufacturers are moving from exhibition and into commercial deployments. 

China already controls the biggest share of humanoid deployments

Chinese robot makers already dominate global shipments. In 2025, more than 16,000 humanoid robots were deployed around the world, with China accounting for more than 80%. 

The biggest vendor was AGIBOT, followed by Unitree, UBTECH, and Leju, as Cryptopolitan reported earlier.

Following the latest projection, Sheng Zhong, an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, said, “commercial verification, policy support, and supply-chain feedback point to faster humanoid adoption in China.”

Morgan Stanley pegs China’s humanoid robot market at $2 billion in 2026, growing to $15 billion by 2030 with annual shipments reaching 446,000 units. However, those figures cover only external sales, excluding units built for prototypes, trials, or internal testing. 

U.S. lags in humanoid robot shipments 

While the U.S. is believed to have the upper hand in developing the AI software for robots, most companies are still far from mass production.

The two biggest Chinese players, Agibot and Unitree, each shipped more than 5,000 units last year, while American competitors Figure AI and Tesla each moved a few hundred or fewer, Fortune reported, citing Omdia data.

Unitree posted 1.7 billion yuan ( $250 million) in 2025 revenue and a profit of 278 million yuan ($41 million). Both Unitree and Agibot are preparing IPOs that would value them at a combined $13 billion. 

Just in the news, U.S. humanoid maker Agility Robotics has announced plans to go public through a SPAC deal with Churchill Capital.  The deal values the company at $2.5 billion pre-money. 

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