"Once Worth 4 Million Won a Day, Now Going for Chicken Money"... Chinese Robots' Humiliating Fall to 'Bargain-Bin' Prices in Just One Year

Rental fees plunge by more than 70% in just one year
Robot rental market projected to reach 1.9883 trillion won

Humanoid robot rental fees, which were as high as tens of thousands of yuan per day as recently as last year, have plunged by more than 70% in just one year.

According to Sina Finance on October 19, the daily rental fee for some humanoid robots fell to 1,000 yuan (about 200,000 won) or less this year, while rental fees for robot dogs dropped to around 100 yuan (about 20,000 won).

AI-generated image.

"Not a Temporary Price Fluctuation, but a Market Bubble Deflating"

On Xianyu, a secondhand marketplace, some sellers are renting out robots for around 200 to 300 yuan per day. The sellers described this as "a way to attract new customers," while industry observers attribute the trend to a chain reaction of price declines as robot adoption expands. The outlet noted that the more than 70% drop in robot rental fees in a single year was "not a temporary price fluctuation for a particular product, but a phenomenon resulting from the deflation of the market's early-stage bubble."

After humanoid robots performed at last year's Lunar New Year Gala, the robot rental market attracted explosive interest. Rental companies said inquiries poured in from tourist attractions, corporate events, and university projects, making the robots so popular that bookings were filled through May. The daily rental fee on secondhand platforms for Unitree's G1 model, which appeared on the broadcast and became popular, reached 8,000 to 15,000 yuan and sometimes exceeded 20,000 yuan (about 3.97 million won) during peak season.

However, the current daily rental fee for Unitree's U2 has fallen to about 3,000 yuan (about 600,000 won), while the fee for the G1 is around 2,000 yuan (about 400,000 won). Robot dog rental fees have also been set at 164 yuan (about 32,000 won), with long-term rentals available for less than 100 yuan (about 20,000 won) per day.

"Expanded Supply and Platform Competition Are Major Factors"

U1 humanoid robot. China's Baidu.

The outlet cited expanded supply as a major cause of the price decline. As major manufacturers, including Unitree Robotics, significantly increased their mass-production capacity, robot prices continued to fall almost every month.

In June this year, Logic Robotics announced that it had reached a mass-production scale of 15,000 commercial humanoid robots. In August, Unitree Robotics said its cumulative production of humanoid robots had reached about 18,000 units. The number of companies involved in rentals also surged 55.7% from the previous year, reaching its highest level in about a decade.

Greater price transparency resulting from platform competition has also had a significant impact. Late last year, Zhiyuan Robotics launched the open rental platform QingTianZu, followed by JD.com, which opened its own robot rental flagship store. The deciding factors in choosing a platform are no longer simply which company owns which robots; service standardization and reliability are becoming the key criteria.

According to market research firm iiMedia Research, China's robot rental market is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan (about 1.9883 trillion won) by the end of this year. That would be about a tenfold increase from last year's market of approximately 1 billion yuan. Local experts stressed that the market's success will depend not on low prices, but on factors such as liability insurance, standardized services, and credit systems.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.