Written by Yang Xiao.
Edited by Su Jianxun.
On December 29, UBTECH, the "first share of humanoid robots", landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and finally completed its listing after 11 years. On the first day**, UBTECH reported 90HK$85 shares, up 095%, with a market capitalization of about HK$38 billion.
At the listing ceremony, UBTECH's Panda robot Youyo and a new generation of industrial humanoid robot Walker S were unveiled at the bell ringing site. Youyou handed out the gong hammer to Zhou Jian, the founder, chairman and CEO of UBTECH, and Walkers walked to the stage with another gong hammer** and completed the gong beating action with Zhou Jian. This is also the first time that a humanoid robot has been used to ring the bell for the market.
In 2023, the large model will arouse the industry's enthusiasm for humanoid robots, and many players such as Tesla, Dreame, Xiaopeng, and Xiaomi have launched new humanoid robots, and startups such as Zhiyuan Robot and Chase Power have also received large amounts of financing, and humanoid robot entrepreneurship has ushered in a second spring.
According to Goldman Sachs**, by 2035, the humanoid robot market may reach $154 billion, becoming another AI landing scenario after intelligent driving electric vehicles.
Under the AI Dongfeng and humanoid robot tuyere, UBTECH has been established for 11 years and is difficult to go public, but can it gain a firm foothold in the fierce humanoid robot battlefield?
UBTECH was founded in 2012 and is one of the earliest companies in China to research humanoid robots.
In 2016, UBTECH's 540 Alpha 1S robots performed on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala and became an Internet celebrity in the field of robotics in one fell swoop. At that time, the industry focused on the Chinese market of industrial robots, which was refreshing.
Since then, UBTECH has successively received $100 million in Series B financing led by CDH Capital and iFLYTEK, as well as 8$200 million Series C financing.
However, in the years since UBTECH was established, the humanoid robot market has not developed. Delivery robots have proved their value with contactless delivery during the epidemic, and domestic industrial robots have occupied a place in the emerging markets of photovoltaic and energy storage. But before the large model becomes popular in 2023, it will be difficult for humanoid robots to find landing scenes.
According to the prospectus, UBTECH's humanoid robot "Walker series" has sold 10 units in the past two and a half years, and the official price of a single unit has reached 59880,000 yuan, commercialization progress is difficult.
UBTECH is not the only one with the same dilemma, SoftBank's "emotional" Pepper humanoid robot announced its discontinuation in 2021;Boston Dynamics, the originator of humanoid robots, has also changed hands several times, and its products are currently mainly used in the field of scientific research.
Stepping into the humanoid robot track too early has made UBTECH go through a long struggle, which is also reflected in its revenue and losses.
At present, UBTECH's revenue is mainly in 4 industries - education, logistics, consumption and other industries. According to the prospectus, as of December 10, 2023, UBTECH has more than 900 enterprise customers and has sold more than 760,000 robots.
From 2020 to 2022, UBTECH's revenue will be 74 billion yuan, 81.7 billion yuan, 100.8 billion yuan. Revenue for the first half of 2023 was 26.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 79%。
UBTECH's financial report data.
Educational intelligent robot products and solutions are UBTECH's largest revenue**, mainly provided to the Education Bureau, but the business will decline sharply in the first half of 2023.
From 2020 to 2022, UBTECH's sales of educational robots will be 1110,000 units, 630,000 units, 550,000 units, accounting for total revenue. 2%。By the first half of 2023, sales will be only 1,000 units, accounting for 29% of total revenue0%。The main reasons for this are the loss of education customers and the decline in repeat purchases.
The second largest business is logistics robot products and solutions, but this business has the problem of a high proportion of single customers. In the first three quarters of 2020, 2021 and 2022, Tianqi Automation Engineering Group accounted for this part of the revenue respectively. 7% and 755%。
The revenue of the consumer line business was small. Taking 2022 as an example, the revenue of sweeping robots, cat litter machines and building block toys for C-end consumers will only account for 13 of the whole year1%, but the business accounted for 326%。
UBTECH business.
The difficult commercialization has also made UBTECH still unprofitable in the 11 years since its establishment. In the three years from 2020 to 2022, UBTECH lost 64.3 billion yuan, 76.1 billion yuan and 78.2 billion yuan. In the first half of 2023, it lost 36.7 billion yuan, and the loss rate has a tendency to expand.
Judging from the financial data, UBTECH has not shown strong follow-up development strength - the gross profit margin has declined seriously, from 44 in 20207%, down to 20 in the first four months of the year2%。
The humanoid robot boom in 2023 has undoubtedly added fuel to UBTECH's road to listing.
Before this listing, UBTECH had hit the capital market twice. In 2021, it hit the Science and Technology Innovation Board and ended with the termination of the listing counseling agreementIn 2022, he switched to Hong Kong stocks, but the prospectus was invalid and did not pass the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
As a track of high-tech investment, UBTECH has not relaxed its investment in R&D despite maintaining huge losses. From 2020 to 2022, its R&D expenditure was 42.8 billion yuan, 51.7 billion yuan, 42.8 billion yuan, with a total investment of nearly 1.6 billion yuan, accounting for 56 percent of the total revenue5%。In the first four months of 2023, the proportion of R&D will reach 1221%。
The most important thing in the research and development of humanoid robots is the brain ability of perception and planning, the cerebellar ability of motion control, and the cost reduction trend brought about by parts. It needs to solve the ability to walk in complex scenes, adapt to walking in various complex environments such as lawns and gravel roads, and automatically adjust the movement control of the whole body to maintain the stability and balance of the body's center of gravity and prevent falls. This involves technical competence across multiple disciplines.
An industry source told 36Kr that UBTECH uses the technology of the previous generation of humanoid robots, and although it can walk through deep learning, it is not stable. Today's humanoid robots require perceptive locomotion (perception-based motion control) technology to autonomously perceive the external environment, adapt to the external environment, and complete walking.
On the other hand, from an operational point of view, humanoid robots need to have the ability to perform hand movements. An industry practitioner told 36Kr: "UBTECH's humanoid robot has a very poor load capacity, and the larger the load of the robot, the more difficult it is to walk stably." ”
The walker s robot unveiled on the day of UBTECH's listing reached a height similar to that of the chairman of the board of directors of UBTECH's CEO. Prior to this, UBTECH's products did not adopt a fully humanoid design, such as its previous generation of humanoid robot Walker X, which only had 12 meters.
It is reported that the Walker S is mainly used in the industrial field, and cooperates with a number of new energy vehicle head companies to plan the application of humanoid robots in manufacturing scenarios in stages.
Humanoid robots are in a stage of rapid development on a global scale. After several ups and downs, the humanoid robot track is ushering in its closest step to commercial mass production with the help of large models.
In this wave of humanoid robot entrepreneurship, many new entrants with rich capabilities in technical strength and industrial background are emerging, such as Chase Power and Unitree Technology, which expand from quadruped robots, Accelerated Evolution of the newly established humanoid company, Transwarp Power, etc., Tesla Optimus and Xiaomi CyberOne with car factory resources.
UBTECH, founded in 2012, has no obvious advantages in all-terrain motion control algorithms and large robot models. However, the successful listing can help UBTECH raise more funds through the capital market and promote the research and development of current humanoid robot products.
A few days ago, Xiaomi, UBTECH, and Beijing Electromechanical Industry Investment have jointly established the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, and UBTECH CTO Xiong Youjun is the legal representative to carry out research on the prototype of the general humanoid robot ontology and the general large model of the humanoid robot.
To become the "first stock of humanoid robots", UBTECH is only the first step.