According to data from the stock market on December 30th, southbound funds net bought 7.351 billion HKD in Hong Kong stocks that day, with 1.055 billion HKD used to purchase "the first humanoid robot stock" UBTECH (09880), accounting for 14.3% of the total southbound fund volume for that day, with the buying amount only following Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (00981). At the same time, UBTECH had a total transaction amount of 2.29 billion HKD, surpassing many bank stocks and ranking among the top ten in daily trading volume of Hong Kong stocks.

On the news front, after the lifting of the stock restrictions on December 29, UBTECH announced that its founder, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and CEO Zhou Jian committed not to reduce his holdings of 70.4 million UBTECH H shares in any form for the 12 months starting from December 29, 2024.

Although the lifting of the stock restrictions brought about short-term fluctuations in the stock price, the voluntary lock-up commitment reflects the management's bullish view on the company's long-term operations and the long-term development of the humanoid robot industry. Data shows that in the first half of 2024, UBTECH achieved revenue of 0.487 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.6%; gross profit reached 0.185 billion yuan, more than doubling year-on-year, with a gross margin of 38%, showing significant improvement compared to last year; additionally, the adjusted EBITDA recorded a loss of 0.234 billion yuan, significantly narrowing by 23.75% compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, UBTECH achieved several milestone progress in the commercialization of humanoid robot products in 2024. Currently, UBTECH focuses on key areas in the manufacturing industry, such as Autos and 3C, enhancing the operational and task execution capabilities of humanoid robots. It leads globally in collaborating with several enterprises, including Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile, Geely, FAW-Volkswagen Qingdao Branch, Audi FAW, BYD, BAIC New Energy, as well as major industry leaders like Foxconn in the 3C sector and Shunfeng in logistics, to promote the application and promotion of humanoid robots in assembly, transfer, inspection, and maintenance processes. UBTECH's self-developed humanoid robot, Walker S, is the most widely trained humanoid robot globally, with more than 500 intent orders from car manufacturers.

In recent years, leading companies globally, including Tesla and OpenAI, have successively laid out humanoid robots and achieved significant progress. Tesla's founder, Musk, previously estimated that by 2040, the number of humanoid robots worldwide would exceed that of humans. Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2035, the global humanoid robot market will reach 152 billion USD, equivalent to the scale of the electric vehicle market, about one-third of the smart phone market size in 2021.

Based on the R&D progress and market forecasts of various enterprises, several brokerages have recently released analysis, believing that the commercialization process of humanoid robots will accelerate significantly by 2025. Wanlian Securities pointed out that UBTECH has rich practical experience with humanoid robots, and the Walker S series has become the humanoid robot that has entered the most factories for training worldwide, which not only improves the production efficiency of factories but also provides new solutions for the intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry.

Huachuang Securities pointed out that leading companies in humanoid robots, such as domestic company Ubtech and foreign company Tesla, are continuously releasing new testing signals and application scenarios. Currently, humanoid robot research and development has achieved certain results, and mass production is expected to be realized in the short term. Soochow stated that currently, robot manufacturers at home and abroad are successively launching their humanoid robot products and gradually clarifying their mass production pace, with most of the mass production scheduled for 2025-2026. The outlook remains bullish on the investment opportunities in the robotics industry chain.