SHANGHAI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese robot maker Unitree Robotics on Monday opened subscriptions for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market, putting a leading player in China's fast-growing humanoid robot industry in the capital-market spotlight.

The Hangzhou-based company is offering about 40.45 million shares at 150.80 yuan (about 22 U.S. dollars) each, representing 10 percent of its post-offering share capital. The offering is expected to raise about 6.10 billion yuan in gross proceeds.

The offering drew overwhelming interest during preliminary price inquiries. After invalid bids and the highest-priced portion of proposed subscriptions were excluded, the remaining proposed offline subscriptions totaled 71.46 billion shares, 2,760.67 times the initial offline offering size before adjustment for strategic placement, according to the issuance announcement.

Founded in 2016 as a civilian robotics company, Unitree has established leadership in core robot parts, motion control, robot sensing and other comprehensive fields, focusing on high-performance general-purpose humanoid and quadruped robots, robot components and embodied intelligence models.

The company's prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, Unitree sold 33,294 quadruped robots and 5,632 humanoid robots. Its humanoid robot shipments exceeded 5,500 units in 2025, excluding wheeled dual-arm robots.

Unitree's revenue rose to 1.70 billion yuan in 2025 from 392.77 million yuan in 2024 and 159.13 million yuan in 2023. It posted a net profit of 278.21 million yuan in 2025, while the net profit attributable to the parent company after excluding non-recurring items stood at 590.75 million yuan, according to the prospectus.

Overseas sales remain an important part of the business, generating revenue of 731.66 million yuan in 2025 and accounting for 43.65 percent of its main-business revenue.

Having gone through the STAR Market's pre-review mechanism, the company saw its IPO application accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on March 20 and approved by the listing committee on June 1, a span of just 73 days, marking a record pace, according to the China Securities Journal.

Unitree's IPO comes as robotics, AI-related products and innovative drugs are emerging as three new drivers of China's export growth, following the previous "new three" of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaic products.

Trade data underscores the momentum. China became a net exporter of industrial robots for the first time in 2025. In the first half of 2026, its industrial robot exports reached 6.29 billion yuan, up 18.6 percent year on year, with products shipped to 141 countries and regions, while intelligent biomimetic robot exports exceeded 10,000 units, according to customs data.

Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun has said the three emerging sectors are developing rapidly and could become new pillar industries. Their rise points to a structural shift in China's trade advantages, as the country's global economic engagement increasingly extends beyond manufactured goods to technologies, digital capabilities and services.

Unitree plans to invest about 4.20 billion yuan of IPO proceeds in four projects covering intelligent-robot model research, robot-body research and development, new intelligent-robot products and an intelligent-robot manufacturing base.

The projects are intended to strengthen the company's research capabilities, expand production capacity and accelerate the application of general-purpose robots across more scenarios, according to the prospectus.

Brokerages including China Securities Co., Ltd. and Wanlian Securities have highlighted 2026 as a key year for humanoid robot applications and commercialization. China Securities Co. expects improving generalization capabilities to support broader deployment in industrial and commercial scenarios, while Wanlian Securities sees the year as a key window for mass-production validation and real-world scenario deployment.