Unitree Robotics, a luminary in China’s humanoid robot boom, has reported a sharp plunge in first-quarter profits just days before its crucial listing hearing, casting a shadow over its Star Market initial public offering (IPO) as soaring expenses and a brutal price war catch up to the industry’s hype.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange’s listing committee is scheduled to review Unitree’s IPO application on June 1, according to an exchange notice on Monday. The company, based in Hangzhou, the capital of China’s eastern Zhejiang province, is seeking to raise 4.2 billion yuan (US$618.94 million) to fund robot body development, embodied AI models and manufacturing facilities.

The milestone step towards the IPO sparked a buying frenzy in mainland Chinese markets on Tuesday, as retail investors aggressively chased listed companies with direct exposure to Unitree, including its pre-listing shareholders and upstream suppliers.

Ahead of that hearing, however, an updated regulatory filing released late on Monday revealed a company caught between rapid scaling and shrinking margins.

While Unitree’s first-quarter revenue surged over 68 per cent year on year to 422.8 million yuan, its adjusted net profit, excluding non-recurring items, plummeted more than 52 per cent to 40.3 million yuan, down from 84.8 million yuan a year earlier. The company blamed the profit squeeze on a significant spike in research, development and sales expenses.

The company also attributed the slowdown to a cooling of the broader humanoid robotics hype, a much higher revenue base following an explosive 2025 and increasingly fierce competition.

Unitree told investors that if the commercial adoption of general-purpose robots stalled, or if the short-term robot leasing market weakened, the firm’s growth and margins could face further pressure.