Expectations are running high for Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics' debut on Shanghai's STAR Market on Wednesday, after its record-breaking initial public offering was oversubscribed more than 8,000 times by retail investors, with some institutions predicting a potentially explosive first-day jump.

Industry experts said that Unitree's IPO has become more than a company-specific event. According to them, it is a defining moment for China's fast-growing humanoid robot industry, which is setting a key valuation benchmark for global investors in the sector.

Investors were already placing their bets on Tuesday. Although the broader market came under pressure, a group of stocks of companies in the humanoid robot sector jumped in early trading.

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Swancor, a leading new materials manufacturer that expanded into the field of humanoid robots, closed at 188.97 yuan ($28.03), up 10.26 percent, while Leaderdrive, a precision robotic component maker, edged up about 5 percent to 380.8 yuan.

Unitree sold about 40.45 million shares at 150.80 yuan apiece, raising roughly 6.1 billion yuan. Retail demand exceeded the shares available by more than 8,000 times, a record for Shanghai's tech-focused STAR Market.

Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, described Unitree's IPO as a defining moment for the humanoid robot sector. "For years, investment in the sector has been driven by competing technology road maps and expectations of long-term growth. The IPO will allow investors to compare robot makers more directly on their technology, product maturity, commercialization and path to profitability.

"As the first humanoid robot company to list on China's A-share market, Unitree has established a valuation anchor for the humanoid robot sector both for China and the world, gradually shifting the sector from thematic investment to industrial pricing," he said.

The IPO offer also values Unitree at about 60.99 billion yuan, representing 35.89 times its 2025 sales value and 219.23 times its earnings, far above an average price-to-earnings ratio of about 38.56 times for China's general equipment manufacturing sector.

Xu Guangtan, chief analyst for the machinery sector at China Securities, said that Unitree's offer price and estimated valuation far exceeded previous market expectations and could help reshape how investors value humanoid robot manufacturers.

"Chinese companies are simultaneously strengthening robots' AI 'brains', motion-control cerebellums and physical bodies while pushing toward industrial and commercial applications," Xu said.

On Monday, Unitree unveiled another high-speed robot capable of running at up to 12.66 meters per second and jumping two meters from a standing position. The company said it had produced and delivered about 18,000 bipedal humanoid robots across different models by the end of July.

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Tian Lihui, a finance professor at Nankai University, said, "Whether Unitree can grow into that valuation will depend heavily on whether orders from factories and other industrial customers begin to scale."

Just a day before Unitree's debut, Precilasers, a Chinese laser maker, also made its STAR Market debut and surged more than 500 percent in early trading. At its intraday peak, an investor who secured one standard IPO allocation could have been sitting on gains of more than 550,000 yuan.

"The arrival of a group of hard-tech companies including memorychip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies and Unitree on public markets also pointed to a broader change in how Chinese investors value technology companies. Greater weight has been placed on technological barriers, domestic substitution and future commercial potential rather than current earnings alone," Tian said.

Contact the writers at chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn