Three of China's best-known industrial suppliers say humanoid robots are their next market. Tuopu makes chassis and thermal parts for carmakers, Sanhua makes valves and pumps for air conditioners and cars, and Inovance makes servo systems and electric vehicle drives. The pitch is the same in each case: a humanoid needs dozens of joints, and a supplier that can build automotive parts at volume should be able to build joints.
Their first-half 2026 reports show how far that has got.
What the filings show
Tuopu reports the clearest numbers. Its robot actuators earned ¥14.0m in the first half of 2026, up 83.4%, at a 27.0% gross margin. That is about 0.1% of its ¥14.2bn revenue. Linear actuators, rotary actuators and dexterous-hand motors have reached small-batch delivery, and the first phase of a robot parts base is largely complete (2026 interim report, pp. 5, 8, 12).
Sanhua says its robot electromechanical actuators are moving through batch delivery and line ramp-up, but gives no revenue, volume, customer or capacity. Its robots are not a reported segment (2026 interim report, p. 13).
Inovance lists bionic arms, joint modules, frameless torque motors, low-voltage drives and roller screws among its humanoid parts, and says frameless motors are in small-batch use at unnamed leading humanoid makers. It gives no humanoid revenue (2026 interim report, pp. 13, 25).
Compare that with the motion-control companies that were selling to factories before humanoids appeared. Zhongda Leader reported ¥252.9m of integrated actuator revenue in the same half-year, at a 22.5% margin, for customers in logistics, machine tools and other industries as well as robots (2026 interim report, pp. 9, 11). Kinco shipped 113,600 frameless torque motors and says robots are 54% of its revenue (2026 interim report, p. 15). Those are not all humanoid sales, but they are real volumes today.
Who are the customers?
None of the three names a humanoid maker in its filing. The only humanoid maker named by any supplier we cover is AgiBot, which Zhongda Leader lists among its end customers without saying which products it buys. For the car-parts makers, the media have named one: reports in September 2026, citing industry sources, said Tesla had begun a new round of factory audits in Ningbo for its Optimus robot, and a Tuopu staff member told a reporter the company cooperates with Tesla on linear, rotary and dexterous-hand actuators. A Sanhua staff member said they were not aware of the audit but that the company is working with a major customer on robot joint actuators (IT之家, 19 September 2026). In October 2025 Sanhua published a clarification that a rumoured US$685m Tesla order was untrue (IT之家, 15 October 2025). The companies' own filings do not confirm any Tesla supply.
The Chinese humanoid makers do not help much either. Unitree says it designs its own joint motors and drives, and its five largest raw-material suppliers were only 22.5% of its purchases in 2025 (prospectus, pp. 136, 150). UBTech lists its own servo drives and integrated harmonic joints among its core technology. Neither names an outside joint supplier.
Our view
The case for car-parts makers is credible: they have the plants, the quality systems and the capital. But the evidence in the filings is thin. Robot revenue is a rounding error at Tuopu, the only one of the three to report it, none of the three names a humanoid customer, and the two Chinese humanoid makers with public numbers design much of the joint themselves. The volume that exists today sits with motion-control companies selling to industry. The test for car-parts makers is whether they can win a named humanoid programme at a margin that holds once volumes rise, and no filing yet shows that.
What to watch
- A filing or announcement that names a humanoid customer, or confirms the Tesla reports.
- Robot revenue becoming a reported segment at Sanhua and Inovance.
- Margins on actuators as volume rises. Zhongda Leader's fell 4.6 points in a year.
- Whether the humanoid makers keep designing joints in-house.
The full picture is on our humanoid robot industry map, with each stage's companies, volumes and margins.