Fully automated car plants could arrive by 2030 led by Chinese brands.
Hyundai recently said it will employee robots at its Georgia plant by 2028.
Those experts refer to wholly robot-staffed factories as “dark” plants, with analysts from Gartner and Warburg Research predicting that a Chinese automaker will likely be the first to eradicate humans from the workforce, possibly as soon as 2030
China dominates global humanoid robot market with over 80% of installations
AgiBot and Unitree help China capture bulk of global deployments in 2025 as market heads for sixfold growth by 2027, report says
China accounted for more than four out of five humanoid robot installations globally in 2025, driven by domestic start-ups AgiBot and Unitree Robotics, as mass production and commercialisation accelerated, according to a report by Counterpoint Research.
A total of 16,000 humanoid robots were installed globally in 2025, mainly for data collection and research, as well as in the logistics, manufacturing, and automotive sectors, according to Counterpoint data released on Wednesday.
The market was projected to exceed 100,000 units by 2027, a sixfold growth from 2025, with logistics, manufacturing and automotive uses expected to make up 72 per cent of all installations, the research firm said.
“The next two years will see more humanoid enterprises commercialising the mass-production versions of robots, and their performance will largely determine the development pace of the whole industry,” Counterpoint said.
Shanghai-based AgiBot led the market with a 30.4 per cent share of installations worldwide in 2025, followed by Hangzhou-based Unitree’s 26.4 per cent.
AgiBot’s diverse product range and open-source strategy helped drive commercial deployment across various sectors, while Unitree gained attention with its expertise in dynamic motion and balance control, Counterpoint said.
Robot rentals – led by AgiBot and Unitree – had also gained popularity as they lowered the cost of ownership and encouraged adoption in scenarios such as live performance, according to Counterpoint.