On August 24, DOBOT (02432.HK), known as the "first listed collaborative robot company," released its 2026 interim results. The company posted revenue of RMB 316 million for the first half of the year, a year-on-year surge of 106.6%, marking a doubling in operational scale. However, losses during the period also expanded to RMB 108 million, widening by 163.8% year-on-year, while adjusted losses reached RMB 64 million, a significant increase from the RMB 22.9 million recorded in the same period last year. This is a classic case of "rising revenue accompanied by rising losses." The quality of the doubled revenue and where the increased losses are going will determine how the market views the company's current predicament.

The source of the doubled revenue lies in DOBOT's core business: collaborative robots. In the first half, six-axis collaborative robots generated revenue of RMB 197 million, up 110.4% year-on-year, accounting for 62.2% of total revenue and serving as the biggest growth engine. Composite robots contributed RMB 27.5 million, up 89.7%, while the once-dominant four-axis collaborative robot line saw revenue of just RMB 41.6 million, growing a mere 5.1% and seeing its share halve from 25.9% to 13.2%. The divergence between six-axis and four-axis products highlights the strategic shift in the core business. Six-axis robots, capable of flexible three-dimensional movement for complex tasks, are the mainstay of industrial flexible automation, used in sectors like equipment manufacturing, automotive, and 3C electronics for tasks such as loading, assembly, inspection, and palletizing. Four-axis robots, with simpler structures and lower prices, are primarily for educational training and light industrial settings. This divergence in growth reflects a shift in DOBOT's revenue focus. Revenue from industrial applications hit RMB 197 million, a 142.4% surge, raising its share of product sales revenue from 53.2% to 62.8%, making it the company's largest application segment. In contrast, education segment revenue grew only 26.9% to RMB 73.2 million. The company hasn't changed its core sector but is transitioning from lower-value education and light industry markets to higher-value industrial manufacturing. According to CIC Consulting, DOBOT held a 13.2% global market share in collaborative robots by 2025 sales, ranking first worldwide, with cumulative global shipments exceeding 100,000 units, serving over 80 Fortune 500 manufacturing enterprises.

The most significant highlight of this earnings report is the first substantive revenue contribution from its embodied intelligence business. In the first half, this segment generated RMB 45.2 million in revenue, a more than 20-fold increase from the RMB 2.1 million in the year-ago period, lifting its share of total revenue from 1.4% to 14.3%. The company has expanded its embodied intelligence customer base to 231 clients, spanning all stages of commercial adoption from contract signing, sample validation, small-batch delivery to large-scale use, with close to 100 being industrial manufacturers. DOBOT disclosed that its embodied intelligence business has onboarded end customers including Valeo Group, Leapmotor, KEBODA, and a European Fortune 500 cosmetics company, with orders on hand surpassing RMB 60 million. On the technology front, in May 2026, DOBOT launched its self-developed world action model "DobotWAM Embodied Large Model," which integrates 3D geometric perception with kinematic constraints. It achieved an average completion rate of 99.25% on the LIBERO benchmark for embodied intelligence standards, surpassing mainstream public models like Nvidia's GR00T-N1.7. Leveraging its "one brain, multiple bodies" technical architecture, the company offers humanoid, multi-legged, dual-arm, and single-arm robots for diverse applications across industrial manufacturing, scientific research, education, and commercial retail. However, the embodied business currently accounts for less than 15% of revenue, and its sustained growth remains to be validated in coming quarters. While many in the embodied intelligence sector are still in prototype validation and scenario exploration, DOBOT has demonstrated some commercial viability through real orders from industrial clients.

Despite both revenue and gross profit doubling—gross profit reached RMB 150 million, up 108.3%, with a stable gross margin of 47.4%—why did losses widen? There are two primary reasons. First, R&D spending has been significantly front-loaded. R&D expenses in the first half totaled RMB 102 million, up 148.4% year-on-year, with the R&D expense ratio climbing to 32.1% from 26.7%. The company attributes this to proactive investments in its embodied intelligence R&D framework to seize major industry opportunities. Concurrently, sales and distribution expenses rose 57.7% to RMB 130 million, representing 41.0% of revenue. Second, foreign exchange losses of approximately RMB 66.1 million were recorded due to foreign currency holdings. Additionally, the company booked RMB 2.3 million in listing expenses related to its planned IPO on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's ChiNext board. On July 22 of this year, DOBOT's ChiNext IPO was approved, aiming to raise RMB 1.2 billion to bolster its embodied intelligence initiatives.

DOBOT's position is clear: its collaborative robot core business is growing steadily with stable margins, providing solid cash flow and industrial customer resources. The embodied intelligence business has achieved a breakthrough from zero to one, but its share is still small, and substantial investments will continue to weigh on the income statement in the near term. The six-axis business isn't just a cash cow; it's also the technological foundation and customer acquisition channel for embodied intelligence. The dual arms of humanoid robots are essentially an extension of industrial collaborative arm technology, with a repeat positioning accuracy of ±0.05mm. Of the 231 embodied intelligence customers added in the first half, nearly 100 are industrial manufacturers, heavily overlapping with the automotive, 3C, and equipment manufacturing sectors that use collaborative robots. This is a key differentiator from pure humanoid robot startups. However, this differentiation doesn't equate to ease. Building an A+H dual listing platform amid widening losses underscores that the "ticket" to embodied intelligence comes at a steep price, requiring more capital. The company is essentially trading its current collaborative robot profit margins for a ticket to the embodied intelligence era—and whether that ticket pays off depends on whether the RMB 45.2 million in revenue can sustain growth in the coming quarters and whether the RMB 102 million R&D investment can translate into scalable commercial orders.