China's humanoid rental market ran a full cycle in eighteen months. The daily rate for a Unitree G1 fell from 30,000 yuan to a promotional 1 yuan. Around 90% of new entrants left the market at a loss. Chinese outlet Titanium Media reported it on September 16.
Key takeaways
- Market: 1 billion yuan in 2025, a 10 billion forecast for 2026 — up 900%
- Over 153,000 registered rental companies, roughly 3,000 genuinely active
- Daily rate from a peak of 30,000 yuan to 1,571 yuan, with 1-yuan promotions
- 65% of demand is one-off event and marketing work, industry about 10%
- Machines originally worth 300,000–800,000 yuan now resell for 30,000–60,000
Eighteen months from frenzy to fire sale
In 2025 renting a humanoid for a day cost as much as 30,000 yuan. A year was enough for rates to slide to 1,571 yuan. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two-hour demo slots appeared for a single yuan.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Daily rate — 2025 peak | 30,000 yuan |
| Daily rate — current | 1,571 yuan |
| Promotion in tier-1 cities | 1 yuan for 2 hours |
| Registered companies | over 153,000 |
| Genuinely active players | about 3,000 |
| Share of event-driven jobs | 65% |
New registrations arrived at roughly a hundred a day in the first quarter of 2026. The gap between how many companies registered and how many actually operate says everything about the quality of that growth.
A platform without a single machine of its own
Qingtian Rent grew fastest. It launched in late December 2025 and owned no hardware. By mid-2026 it had deployed more than 4,000 machines and signed around 400 city partners. Its valuation reached 7 billion yuan. Over 20,000 applicants sat on the partnership waitlist.
This is a broker model, not an operator one — the depreciation?Depreciation: The decline in a machine's value over time. At 20–30% a year a robot loses half its value in under three years, whether or not it is working. risk stays with whoever bought the hardware.
Arithmetic that does not add up
The Unitree G1 sells in China for between 100,000 and 319,000 yuan. Unitree lists a base price of $13,500. At 20–30% annual depreciation the value erodes exponentially:
Symbol meaning
- …
- purchase price of the machine
- …
- value after n years
- …
- annual depreciation rate, here 0.20–0.30
- …
- number of years
Used machines originally worth 300,000–800,000 yuan now go for 30,000–60,000. The decisive factor is the shape of demand: 65% of jobs are entertainment and marketing, meaning one-off events. Industry accounts for about 10%. There is no recurring revenue to cover the fall in value.
Why it matters
This is the first large test of humanoid demand outside a product demo. As long as a robot sells as an attraction, its market ends when the novelty does. The Chinese numbers are also a warning about valuations — capital priced a rental broker at 7 billion yuan while rates were falling by two orders of magnitude.
What's next?
- The 10 billion yuan forecast for 2026 predates the rate collapse and has not been revised
- At 20–30% annual depreciation, machines bought at the peak will not pay back at current rental prices
- Shifting demand from events to industry is the precondition for the rental model to survive
Sources
- Titanium Media — 日租3万跌到1元，机器人租赁90%玩家血亏离场
- Unitree — G1
