Ubtech said its new Uworld U1 line drew more than 13,000 orders at launch for what it calls the first mass-produced full-size humanoid companion robots.
Priced from 119,800 yuan to 990,000 yuan, the robots are aimed at companionship rather than the elder care, childcare and housework roles the company highlighted earlier.
Ubtech says the U1 can mimic 90% of human movements with 88 servo joints, 300 micro-expressions and sub-20 millisecond lip-sync latency, but demonstrations showed slow, awkward responses that could take tens of seconds.
Many early orders came from showrooms and government procurement programs rather than households, underscoring how untested consumer demand remains for home humanoids.
The launch pushes China’s humanoid robotics sector beyond factory use into consumer companionship, even as the technology still falls short of natural human interaction.