After leading Youbi to become the “first share of humanoid robots”, Zhou Jian, founder, chairman and CEO of Youbi, said, “Listing financing is only a stage progress, and the humanoid robot business still has a long way to go.”

On December 29, 2023, the company was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and according to the allocation result announcement, the final IPO (initial public offering) price of the company was HK $90 per share, raising a net amount of about HK $906 million. As of January 10, the company’s total market capitalisation was HK $37.147 billion.

Zhou Jian told reporters that Youbi is at a key point in the commercialization of humanoid robots, listing does not mean Youbi will slow down the pace, but more let him feel that “time is not waiting for me.”

Public information shows that Youbi has very few humanoid robot full-stack technology (including computer vision, voice interaction, servo drive, motion planning and control, and positioning and navigation technology) capabilities in the world, and on this basis, the company carries out the research and development, design, intelligent production and commercial application of intelligent service robot solutions. Its humanoid robot “Walker” is China’s first commercial bipedal life-size humanoid robot.

In the past, Jian Zhou worked for a listed German machinery company, responsible for sales in Asia Pacific and China, and later founded a number of high-tech enterprises. In 2008, Zhou Jian gave up his well-paid job and comfortable life to build a team dedicated to the development and manufacturing of China’s own intelligent robots. Mr. Zhou founded the company in 2012.

Commercialization, two steps

Data show that in the fiscal year 2022 and the first half of 2023, the operating income of the company was 1.008 billion yuan and 261 million yuan, and the net loss was 987 million yuan and 548 million yuan, respectively.

According to Frost & Sullivan data, according to 2022 revenue, Youbi ranked third in China’s intelligent service robot and intelligent service robot solution industry, accounting for 2.8% of the market share; In China’s education intelligent robot and solution industry market share of 22.5%, ranking first.

However, the main revenue of the company currently comes from intelligent robots and solutions for education and logistics, accounting for 77.3% and 58.4% of total revenue in FY2022 and the first half of 2023, respectively. Even companies at the forefront of humanoid robot commercialization, such as Youbi, also believe that the current application scenarios in the field are limited, and the manufacturing cost is still high. From 2021 to the first half of 2023, only 10 “Walker” series humanoid robots were sold, and a total revenue of 59.8 million yuan was confirmed.

After a wave of discussion, the company’s share price has not moved much in the more than a week since its debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange, essentially trading around HK $90 per share.

Zhou Jian said that compared with the company’s stock price, he is more concerned about making the company’s business condition more healthy, so that humanoid robot products can land faster in industrial scenes and family scenes.

He believes that intelligent manufacturing will become the first large-scale application of humanoid robots, humanoid robots will redefine workers in the era of AI (artificial intelligence), and free people from repetitive labor; The commercial service scene is the fastest application market for humanoid robots, and the home landing scene is the most potential application market for humanoid robots.

In the industrial manufacturing scenario, the humanoid robot “Walker X” launched by UBI has been trained and tested in the smart factory scenario, mainly for SPS (Parts sorting system) intelligent sorting and aging testing. Walker X can be “embedded” into high-repetition, low-load production processes by linking with unmanned handling robots, thereby improving factory efficiency and flexibility. In 2023, the company also specially developed a humanoid robot “Walker S” for industrial applications.

“At present, we are working with domestic new energy vehicle enterprises and high-end intelligent equipment solution enterprises to explore the application of humanoid robots in industrial scenarios such as new energy vehicles, 3C electronics (computers, communications and consumer electronics products), and smart logistics.” At the main forum of the 2023 World Robot Conference, Zhou Jian said that the manual in the era of industrial automation is still indispensable, and the future humanoid robot can cooperate with traditional automation equipment to solve the flexible unmanned of complex scenes, and independently complete tasks such as torque tightening, flexible assembly, and material handling.

In the commercial service scenario, Youbi is also gradually promoting the application of humanoid robots, and its first humanoid robot “Walker X” has landed in the New Future City of Saudi Arabia, becoming the first generation of large humanoid robot citizens to provide intelligent services.

In addition, for the application of humanoid robots in family scenes, Zhou Jian believes that it will be divided into two steps. “The first step is the application of the accompanying function, and the second step is the landing of the service function.” Now robots have the ability to understand and break down complex tasks and finally plan and execute them, and once the movement ability is improved, it will move to the second stage.”

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Shortly before the listing, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Guidance on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots, saying that humanoid robots integrate advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and new materials, and are expected to become disruptive products after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. By 2025, the humanoid robot innovation system will be initially established, the whole machine products will reach the international advanced level, and mass production will be achieved, and demonstration applications will be made in special, manufacturing, people’s livelihood services and other scenarios.

The Guangfa Securities report believes that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has identified humanoid robots as one of the key development directions after the “Notice on the Unveiling of the Future Industrial Innovation Task” in September last year, and further increased the guidelines for the industrialization of humanoid robots, and the industry has arrived. Under the promotion of policies, humanoid robots are expected to regain the global competitiveness of new energy and become one of the important domestic industries.

In recent years, some technology manufacturers, new energy vehicle companies and startups are also increasing their investment in humanoid robot tracks. Last month, Tesla released the humanoid robot Optimus Gen2 (Optimus Prime 2 generation), performance, structural design and operational flexibility compared to the previous generation are significantly improved; In August 2023, Zhiyuan Robot, founded by Huawei’s “genius boy” Zhi Huijun (real name Peng Zhihui), released the first humanoid robot “Expedition A1”, which will face different manufacturing scenarios such as 3C electronics and automotive equipment, and is expected to be commercialized this year; In addition, Xiaomi also released its first full-size bionic humanoid robot CyberOne (Tieda) in 2022, which is more inclined to service-oriented capabilities, with high emotional intelligence, and can sense human emotions.