The world's five largest humanoid robot makers by shipments were all Chinese and together accounted for 86% of global shipments in the first half of 2026, according to a report by TechCrunch published August 30. The analysis comes as Washington tightened restrictions on foreign-made advanced robotic systems in July and August and imposed steep tariffs on imported drones and their components, citing national-security concerns. The restrictions may shield portions of the American market, but they don't directly tackle China's global manufacturing scale and cost advantages, the report finds.

Global humanoid robot shipments reached 22,000 units in the first half of this year, with the vast majority coming from Chinese manufacturers, according to data from Counterpoint Research cited in the report. The top five makers by volume — AgiBot, Unitree, Galbot, UBTECH, and Leju Robotics — were all based in China. U.S. companies, by contrast, are operating at a far smaller scale, the report notes. The drone tariffs take effect in September, with additional component tariffs following in 2027, part of a broader U.S. effort to restrict foreign technology in strategically important industries that began with the FCC's Covered List established in 2021.

Industry analysts told TechCrunch that the outcome may be less a clean U.S.-China division than a more fragmented global market, with Chinese companies expanding elsewhere while U.S. and allied manufacturers compete in markets where security requirements carry more weight. "You cannot sanction your way around a cost curve. You can only out-build it, and America has yet to begin making the decade-long investment that will require," Ankur Saxena, an investment director at TDK Ventures, told the outlet. The report notes that Chinese humanoid makers are pushing costs down by bringing more of the technology stack in-house and drawing on China's existing manufacturing base, with companies like Unitree developing more components internally while automakers such as XPeng leverage their experience in chips and vehicle manufacturing as they move into robotics.

Lower prices allow Chinese manufacturers to put more robots into use, generating real-world data that can improve their technology, while higher production volumes can drive costs down further, creating a compounding advantage, the report explains. Even if Chinese robotics companies lose access to the American market, they still have a large domestic market and room to expand elsewhere, particularly in regions where demand for affordable automation is growing, according to Saxena. Chinese robotics companies are already targeting price-sensitive markets with severe labor shortages across Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, Soumen Mandal, a principal analyst at Counterpoint Research, told TechCrunch. Countries facing labor shortages and demographic decline could become early markets for humanoids, particularly in manufacturing, where robots can take on repetitive work.

The restrictions could accelerate the emergence of regional markets: Chinese companies competing on cost and scale across much of the world, U.S. and allied manufacturers gaining ground where security requirements matter most, and manufacturers in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea trying to carve out space between the two, the report concludes. "The alternative to China isn't a purely domestic U.S. supply chain; it's a diversified allied one," Saxena said, pointing to opportunities for Japan's decades of experience in industrial robotics and precision manufacturing, South Korea's strengths in electronics and batteries, and Taiwan's semiconductor expertise. Asian manufacturers could emerge as a middle ground between lower-cost Chinese robots and more expensive U.S. offerings, Mandal noted, with South Korea's Hyundai and Japan's Toyota among the automakers investing in robotics and drawing on their expertise in vehicles and autonomous systems as they move into humanoid robots. The policy's long-term effect will depend less on where barriers are erected than on whether competing nations can marshal the industrial capacity to close the production gap — a challenge that extends far beyond robotics to define the broader contest over advanced manufacturing itself.