US integrators keep the deployment margin as China's robot makers look abroad for theirs

A tariff decision that did not arrive

Fact On October 28, 2026, the President signed a Section 232 proclamation finding that imports of robotics, industrial machinery and their parts threaten US national security. It imposed no tariffs. Instead it directed the Commerce Secretary and the US Trade Representative to negotiate agreements with trading partners, according to a White House fact sheet.1

Fact The investigation had opened on September 2, 2025. The proclamation says the US produced about $86 billion of such equipment domestically in 2024 and relies on imports for most types, Mayer Brown summarized, and the agencies must report on the negotiations within 180 days.23

Our read For robot companies the decision moves the margin question from Washington back to the business model. If the US is not going to price out imported hardware yet, a domestic robot maker cannot count on tariffs to protect its gross margin, and an exporter cannot count on open access lasting. Both have to decide who in the chain they want to be.

What an exporter's margin looks like

Fact Unitree's 2025 revenue reached 1.70 billion yuan, up from 392.77 million yuan a year earlier. Overseas revenue was 731.66 million yuan, or 43.65% of core revenue, and the company shipped more than 5,500 humanoids, China Daily reported from its IPO filing.4

Fact The filing put 2025 gross margin on core businesses at 60.13%, Gasgoo reported. Overseas sales had made up more than half of core revenue in each of 2022, 2023 and 2024, at 57.21%, 55.63% and 55.70%, according to National Business Daily.56

Fact Humanoids had become the larger product line: in the first nine months of 2025 they brought in 595 million yuan, 51.53% of revenue, against 488 million yuan for quadrupeds, 36Kr reported from the filing. Nearly half of the IPO proceeds were earmarked for embodied-intelligence model technology, according to Gasgoo.155

Fact Unitree listed on Shanghai's STAR Market on August 19, 2026. Shares opened at 1,100 yuan against an issue price of 150.8 yuan, and the offering raised 6.1 billion yuan, above its 4.2 billion yuan target, Caixin reported.7

Our read A 60% gross margin on hardware is unusual, and it came at a time when overseas buyers supplied close to half of revenue. Overseas share fell below half in 2025 as domestic revenue grew faster, which is consistent with the policy-driven demand at home. The lesson for US competitors is that the most visible Chinese exporter does not sell at thin margins today. Its prices leave room to cut, and a rival planning against current Unitree list prices is planning against a ceiling.

China's export push runs on volume

Fact China's industrial robot exports grew 48.7% in 2025 and exceeded imports for the first time, making the country a net exporter. In the first quarter of 2026, separately listed robot products earned 11.32 billion yuan in exports to 148 countries and regions, and cleaning robots made up 68.5% of that, China Daily reported in June 2026.8

Fact At home, Chinese suppliers installed 195,000 of the 354,000 industrial robots deployed in China in 2025, a 55% share, according to IFR data reported by CGTN.9

Fact UBTech said its humanoid orders reached about 1.4 billion yuan in 2025 and that capacity for industrial humanoids would exceed 10,000 units in 2026. In January 2026 Airbus bought its Walker S2 to test humanoids in aviation manufacturing, and the company said it was pushing into factory markets in Europe and the United States, Xinhua reported.11

Our read The DJI comparison holds in one respect: the playbook is to arrive abroad with a finished, cheap, good-enough product and a dealer network before local rivals have scale. Chinese cleaning-robot exports already follow that pattern. Humanoids are earlier, but a 10,000-unit capacity target signals that UBTech intends to sell on price once demand allows it.

In the US, the integrator owns the site

Fact Universal Robots, the cobot maker, says it has more than 1,100 partners worldwide, more than 300 UR+ partners and more than 400 certified UR+ components, kits and solutions. Its certified system integrators are mainly regional and build applications that combine hardware and software, offering engineering, turnkey delivery, training and support, according to the company.10

Fact North American companies ordered 36,766 robots worth $2.25 billion in 2025, with general industry taking the majority of units, according to the Association for Advancing Automation.12

Fact Agility Robotics described its 2026 business in terms of multi-year commercial agreements, paid customer programs and a Customer Acceleration Program, with GXO adding two US sites from early 2027 and more than $300 million in committed orders for Digit 5 that it called potential value rather than current revenue.13

Our read A general-industry buyer ordering a few robots does not have a robotics team. Someone has to survey the cell, write the safety case, program the task and answer the phone at 2 a.m., and in the US that someone is usually an integrator who bills for it. Universal Robots built its position by certifying those partners. Humanoid makers have not built that layer yet, so for now they do the integration themselves through paid programs.

Where the value may settle

Fact Component suppliers are already booking humanoid revenue. Schaeffler reported cumulative humanoid robotics orders of €400 million by the third quarter of 2026, after two new Chinese customers, and opened a humanoid facility in Taicang on October 20, 2026, Humanoid.guide reported.14

Fact Harmonic Drive Systems expected about ¥2.5 billion of humanoid-related orders in the year to March 2026, largely from North American clients building prototypes, Investing.com reported in November 2025.16

Fact On the maker side, Figure ran its own robot at BMW's Spartanburg plant for 10 months, handling more than 90,000 parts before the unit was retired, BimmerToday reported in November 2025.17

Our read Three groups are positioned to keep margin. Integrators and operators keep it where the hard part is the site. Component makers keep it where one part goes into every robot regardless of brand. Robot makers keep it only where the product is differentiated enough to set price, which in the US means autonomy that removes the need for a human fallback.

Our read Unitree's numbers show a maker keeping margin while volumes are still small. That position gets harder as UBTech and others add capacity and as the same Chinese parts base serves everyone. Hardware margin tends to shrink toward the component layer as volumes rise, unless the maker also owns the software or the service contract. Unitree's plan to spend close to half its IPO money on models reads as an attempt to do exactly that.

Choosing a channel before the margin moves

Our read A US robot maker has two workable options. It can build and certify an integrator channel early, on the Universal Robots model, and accept a smaller share of each deployment in exchange for reach. Or it can act as the integrator in one vertical, own the site, and charge for outcomes. Trying to sell hardware alone into general industry leaves the margin to whoever does the integration.

Our read A component or model company has a different customer: the robot maker's engineer. Its channel is credibility with that engineer, built through lifetime data, reference designs and fast samples. Schaeffler's move to Taicang is that strategy in physical form.

Our read For a Chinese exporter, the open question is who installs and services the robot in Europe, the Gulf or Latin America. A dealer network solves sales. It does not solve a safety sign-off or a service call, and that is where local integrators will set terms.