Industry
UBTECH agrees to supply 400 U1 Pro humanoids to car dealer Yongda for its showrooms
UBTECH signed a strategic cooperation agreement with car dealer Yongda Auto on 11 November under which Yongda will buy 400 of UBTECH's U1 Pro ultra-bionic humanoid robots, Yicai reported, citing UBTECH. UBTECH plans to deliver the robots within this year, according to the report.
The robots are meant for product demonstrations, sales promotion and customer service in Yongda's dealerships, Servospace reported. The two companies also plan to sell and lease robots through car retail, open a UBTECH experience centre in Shanghai and test store-in-store robot displays at selected Yongda outlets in eastern China. Yicai said the partners will also cooperate on industry applications, delivery services and data.
Neither company has disclosed the contract value. At the U1 Pro's list price of RMB 169,800, 400 units would come to about RMB 67.92 million (roughly $10.1 million) at list price, Servospace calculated, noting that this is an estimate and not the deal value. UBTECH told Chinese media it is the first large order it has disclosed for its ultra-bionic line, according to Servospace.
Yongda, a Hong Kong-listed luxury car dealer, describes its robot business in its interim report as being at the incubation and business-model validation stage, with no large-scale revenue yet, Servospace reported.