When humanoid robots danced on China’s 2025 Spring Festival Gala, they were transformed overnight from engineering curiosities into commercial commodities. The national exposure triggered a wave of demand for rentable performers, prompting entrepreneurs, ex-TV directors and recent engineering graduates to buy robots and set up rental services that promised rapid payback. A year on, the boom has collapsed into a bruising price and survival battle as models proliferate, platforms undercut incumbents and the economics of mobility and after-sales service reassert themselves.
At the centre of the scramble are a handful of hardware brands and a growing set of marketplace platforms. Early leaders such as Yush commanded roughly seven in ten bookings at one point and were prized for transportability and mechanical reliability. Newer entrants such as Zhiyuan have won attention for stronger human–machine interaction and lower coding thresholds that make them easier to customise for client-specific performances, while smaller manufacturers and integrators try to win pilot contracts by covering many brands.
The market’s most visible inflection points are pricing and platformisation. In early 2025 some Yush G1 units rented for as much as RMB20,000 a day, a figure that drew fresh capital and dozens of new operators into the field. By mid-2025 prices had fallen to the high single digits in thousands of RMB per day; by early 2026 a typical rate for Yush’s latest U2 model settled around RMB5,000 a day. New rental platforms—most notably Qingtianzu and Wanji Yizu—have promoted aggressive subsidy schemes and low headline prices to win users, lengthening the fight and compressing margins across the board.
That squeeze has forced a rethink of business models. Operators say headline rental fees rarely cover total costs once transport, engineer travel, on-site operators and after-sales responsibilities are included, especially for cross‑province gigs that demand multi‑day round trips by technicians. Some firms are opening regional hubs or forming local alliances to reduce logistics costs; others emphasise hybrid models that pair rentals with agency sales and maintenance contracts. Platform-listed orders remain patchy, so many suppliers continue to rely on direct client relationships for the bulk of bookings.
Technology, not just price, is now the key differentiator. Brands that deliver stable performance, robust stage behaviours and credible human interaction stand to capture high‑visibility gigs such as the 2026 Spring Festival Gala—a showcase that interviewees describe as the sector’s trial by fire. Equally important to many operators is the ease of secondary development: robots whose code is accessible let rental teams create customised routines or integrate with venue controls, increasing their utility for corporate events, fashion shows and live performances.
The current phase looks less like a permanent marketplace than a fast-moving selection process. Industry participants describe the present trajectory as a rationalisation: from speculative, high-margin rentals to a market where price is being stripped of “water”, and only firms that combine reliable hardware, serviced operations and a path to recurring revenue will endure. Some observers expect consolidation around a few vertically integrated players who can manufacture, operate rental fleets and deliver software and support at scale.
For international observers, this is a useful case study in how robotics moves from demo to deployment. The rental market is behaving as a low‑risk commercial proving ground: it accelerates iteration on reliability, human–robot interaction, and developer tooling, while revealing the cost lines that will matter for broader adoption in retail, hospitality and household contexts. The short-term pain endured by operators is therefore part of a longer process of market discovery and industrial maturation.
Yet important questions remain. Will platform subsidies simply shift volume to operators that serve local markets, or will they create a two-tier market that favours platform-affiliated fleets? Can manufacturers turn the ability to be customised into durable competitive advantage, or will low-code ease-of-use merely commoditise performance? And critically, will rental economics ever support wide geographic service without deeper changes in logistics, battery life and autonomous troubleshooting? Answers will shape whether humanoid robots evolve into ubiquitous service machines or remain costly spectacle actants.