Hong Kong Stock Market Robotics "Twin Giants" Annual Reports: Revenue Growth is Significant, Profitability is Still Early

Ask AI · Why are loss-making companies cash-rich, and how do financing strategies support development?

Reporter Zheng Chenye

On the evening of March 31, UBTECH (9880.HK) disclosed its 2025 annual performance report. The day before, Yuejiang (02432.HK) also released its 2025 annual report. The annual results of two Hong Kong-listed robotics companies were laid out before investors.

Data shows that in 2025, UBTECH achieved a full-year revenue of 2.01 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 53.3%; among which, humanoid robot revenue was 820 million yuan, accounting for over 40% of total revenue, transforming from a minor business segment into the company’s largest source of income within a year. Yuejiang’s full-year revenue was 492 million yuan, up 31.7%, with collaborative robot shipments surpassing 100k units, and products sold to over 100 countries and regions worldwide.

UBTECH turned its humanoid robot business from a small operation into a revenue pillar, while Yuejiang expanded its collaborative robot sales globally. The paths of the two companies seem quite different. But they also share some common points, such as still being unprofitable. In 2025, UBTECH’s net loss was 790 million yuan, and Yuejiang’s net loss was 84.05 million yuan.

Additionally, both companies hold far more cash than their revenues: by the end of 2025, UBTECH had nearly 4.9 billion yuan in cash and cash equivalents, while Yuejiang held about 2.4 billion yuan. This relates to their refinancing activities: over the past year, UBTECH conducted three rounds of H-share placements, raising approximately 6.5 billion HKD (about 5.8 billion RMB); Yuejiang completed two rounds, raising about 1.8 billion HKD in total.

While revenues are rapidly increasing and financing continues, where do the two companies stand in the hot robotics track?

Different Ways of Making Money

In 2024, UBTECH’s revenue structure was still quite dispersed. Its largest source was intelligent robot products and solutions, including logistics robots and educational robots, with full-sized humanoid robots only generating 35.62 million yuan, accounting for just 2.7% of total revenue.

But in 2025, UBTECH’s full-sized humanoid robot revenue soared to 820 million yuan, a 2203.7% increase, accounting for 41.1% of total revenue, making it the company’s largest income source.

According to the annual report, in 2025, UBTECH delivered 1,079 full-sized humanoid robots. The Walker S series industrial humanoid robots have entered mass production in automotive manufacturing, smart logistics, 3C electronics manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing, and other industrial scenarios, mainly performing handling, sorting, and quality inspection tasks. Geographically, UBTECH’s revenue in Mainland China was 100k yuan, and Hong Kong and overseas revenue was 475 million yuan, with over 70% coming from domestic sales.

However, it’s noteworthy that in 2025, UBTECH’s revenue from other intelligent robot products and solutions was 629 million yuan, down 16.9% year-on-year. The explanation given in the annual report was that some logistics projects had not completed delivery and acceptance by the end of the year, so revenue was not recognized.

UBTECH’s third-largest revenue source in 2025 was other smart hardware devices, with revenue of 499 million yuan, a 6.4% increase, including consumer products like lawnmowers, pool robots, vacuum cleaners, and smart cat litter boxes. Additionally, non-embodied intelligent humanoid robot revenue was 47.96 million yuan, up 15.3%.

In other words, UBTECH’s growth in 2025 was mainly driven by the humanoid robot business line, while other businesses did not expand simultaneously, and some even contracted.

The change in revenue structure also affected gross profit margins. In 2025, UBTECH’s overall gross margin increased from 28.7% to 37.7%, a 9 percentage point jump that is uncommon among hardware companies.

The main driver of the gross margin increase was the humanoid robot business. The annual report shows that in 2025, the gross profit from full-sized humanoid robots was 448 million yuan, with a gross margin of 54.6%. A product priced at tens of thousands of yuan, targeting automotive and smart logistics industrial clients, achieved over 50% gross margin. In the current stage of high demand for humanoid robots, UBTECH’s pricing power is quite strong.

Moreover, losses are narrowing. In 2025, UBTECH’s net loss was 790 million yuan, a 31.9% reduction from 1.16 billion yuan in 2024, with net loss attributable to the parent company at 703 million yuan. Expenses decreased: sales expenses were 471 million yuan, down 10.1%, accounting for 23.5% of revenue (down from 40.1%); management expenses were 336 million yuan, down 9.3%, accounting for 16.8% of revenue (down from 28.3%); R&D expenses were 507 million yuan, up 6.1%, accounting for 25.4% of revenue (down from 36.6%).

In short, both sales and management expenses decreased in absolute terms, R&D slightly increased, and the proportion of the three expenses to revenue improved across the board.

Revenues are rising, gross profit is increasing, losses are narrowing, but cash collection has not improved simultaneously. By the end of 2025, UBTECH’s accounts receivable balance was 1.53B yuan, after impairment provisions, 1.84B yuan. The accounts receivable balance of 1.3B yuan is close to UBTECH’s total annual revenue.

Furthermore, the aging structure of receivables reveals more. According to the 2025 annual report, receivables over three years increased from 80.87 million yuan to 342 million yuan, more than tripling.

Regarding customer structure, in 2024, UBTECH had two major customers contributing a total of 33% of revenue, but by 2025, no single customer contributed more than 10%. This indicates UBTECH’s dependence on large clients is decreasing, and revenue sources are becoming more diversified.

Looking at Yuejiang.

In 2025, Yuejiang’s collaborative robotic arm business remained steady. Six-axis collaborative robots generated 302 million yuan, over 60% of total revenue, up 44.7%, making it the largest revenue pillar; four-axis collaborative robots earned 92.95 million yuan, a slight decrease of 3%; compound robots earned 67.61 million yuan, up 27.3%.

In terms of application scenarios, industrial revenue was 279 million yuan, up 39.4%, representing the core market; education scenarios contributed 167 million yuan, up 13.7%; commercial scenarios earned 44.94 million yuan, up 75.7%, the fastest-growing but smallest segment.

Regionally, Yuejiang’s revenue in Mainland China was 249 million yuan, up 44.4%, and overseas revenue was 243 million yuan. In other words, domestic and international revenues are roughly equal.

According to the annual report, Yuejiang’s products are sold in over 100 countries and regions worldwide, serving over 80 Fortune 500 companies. Customer distribution is dispersed, and in 2025, no single customer contributed more than 10% of revenue. Additionally, Yuejiang’s gross margin was 46.1%, a slight decrease of 0.5 percentage points from 2024’s 46.6%, mainly because the proportion of lower-margin domestic revenue increased.

From these data, it’s clear that the foundation of collaborative robots remains solid, but Yuejiang also has ambitions.

In 2025, Yuejiang upgraded its positioning to “Full-Form Embodied Intelligent Platform,” launching multiple products within a year, including the bipedal humanoid robot ATOM, the wheeled humanoid robot ATOM-W, and the hexapod robot Hexplorer.

Yuejiang’s annual report shows that in 2025, embodied intelligent robots generated 20.04 million yuan, accounting for 4.1% of total revenue, with a year-on-year growth of 418.8%. This rapid growth is based on a relatively small base of 3.86 million yuan in 2024.

Although revenue from embodied intelligence remains relatively small, Yuejiang’s investment in this area is accelerating. In 2025, R&D expenses were 115 million yuan, up 59.7%, with 45.1 million yuan invested in embodied intelligence, accounting for 39.3% of R&D spending. Meanwhile, sales expenses were 182 million yuan, up 32.1%. Additionally, Yuejiang had an extra expenditure of 40.9 million yuan, a surge of 565.3% year-on-year, mainly due to increased exchange losses of 28.4 million yuan.

Cash in Hand “Not Short of Money”

Both companies are still unprofitable, but both are cash-rich.

By the end of 2025, UBTECH’s cash and cash equivalents totaled about 1.84B yuan, compared to only 4.89B yuan at the end of 2024. In one year, the cash on hand increased by nearly 3.7 billion yuan. Meanwhile, operating cash flow was negative 784 million yuan, indicating ongoing operational cash outflows, and the large cash increase was mainly due to three rounds of H-share placements.

UBTECH conducted three placements in 2025, raising about 5.78 billion HKD. This significantly improved its balance sheet, reducing leverage ratios and current ratios, and interest-bearing borrowings decreased from 1.19B yuan to 1.54B yuan.

Yuejiang’s situation is similar.

By the end of 2025, Yuejiang held about 2.4 billion yuan in cash and deposits, including 1.12B yuan in fixed-term deposits, mainly from its two rounds of placements that year. Similarly, Yuejiang’s interest-bearing bank loans decreased from 218 million yuan to 1.85B yuan, and its debt-to-asset ratio dropped from 35% to 15%.

In the robotics industry, profitable companies are few, but many can raise funds. UBTECH conducted three placements a year, Yuejiang two, with the speed of issuing new shares rivaling that of launching new products.

Moreover, Yuejiang is planning a second listing. According to public information, Yuejiang intends to issue no more than 48.88 million shares on the Shenzhen ChiNext, raising about 1.2 billion yuan for multi-legged robot R&D and industrialization, humanoid robot technology upgrades, and working capital.

Having raised about 1.8 billion HKD in Hong Kong and still not spent it all, Yuejiang plans to raise another roughly 1.2 billion RMB in A-shares. For a company with annual revenue under 500 million yuan, its financing capacity already surpasses its revenue.

Of course, having cash supports large-capital expenditures.

For example, in 2025, UBTECH’s capital expenditure was 614 million yuan, a 53.2% increase from 2024, mainly for the construction of its Shenzhen headquarters, Hangzhou Lin’an project, Jiujiang industrial park, and Wuxi campus. Additionally, UBTECH is currently advancing the acquisition of Shenzhen-listed Fenglong Shares (002931.SZ), aiming to strengthen the humanoid robot industry chain upstream.

Notably, according to UBTECH’s annual report, the annual capacity of full-sized humanoid robots exceeds 6,000 units, but in 2025, only 1,079 units were delivered, with less than 20% capacity utilization. This indicates that UBTECH is very optimistic about the future humanoid robot market, but the longer the idle capacity persists, the greater the pressure from depreciation and maintenance costs.

Yuejiang’s investments are mainly focused on acquisitions. In June 2025, Yuejiang acquired Hangzhou Xing Si Wujie Technology, a company specializing in multi-legged bionic robots. In March 2026, Yuejiang invested an additional 30 million yuan in Guangdong Embodied Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., holding a 10% stake.

In fact, in the humanoid robot industry, IDC’s data shows that in 2025, global humanoid robot shipments reached about 18k units, a 508% increase. While this growth seems rapid, 18k units worldwide is still a very early-stage figure.

Moreover, rapid shipment growth does not necessarily mean full commercialization. Humanoid robots’ mobility capabilities are improving quickly, but to reliably perform repetitive tasks like handling, sorting, and quality inspection in factories, a large amount of data training and scene adaptation are still required.

A senior executive from a leading humanoid robot manufacturer told reporters that only through extensive real-machine training data can the technology iteration of humanoid robots be supported, improving task success rates.

Li Yiyan, CEO of Qingtian Leasing, also expressed to the Economic Observer that most humanoid robots currently still require manual control and rely on programming, and the stage of autonomous operation in specific scenarios has just begun.

For companies like UBTECH and Yuejiang, having capacity ready, product lines built, and funds secured, the critical question now is whether the upcoming orders can keep pace.