Honor Establishes New Humanoid Robot Subsidiary with 100 Million Yuan Registered Capital

Recently, information from Tianyancha showed that Honor established Shenzhen Honor Qidian Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. as a wholly-owned subsidiary, with a registered capital of 100,000,000 yuan, with CFO Peng Qiuen serving as the legal representative, and a business scope covering service consumption Robot manufacturing, Smart Robots research and development and sales, marking the official acquisition of an independent operating entity for the humanoid robot business.

Before this, Honor had already unveiled two humanoid robot products, “Lightning” and “Yuanqi Zai.” Among them, “Lightning” stands 169 centimeters tall, is equipped with joint modules with a peak torque of 400Nm, and achieved a time of 8.83 seconds in a robot hundred-meter sprint race, showing eye-catching sports performance; “Yuanqi Zai” is oriented towards human-machine interaction and welcoming guests, and both products have completed demonstrations multiple times at public events and offline stores, garnering considerable public attention.

According to information disclosed by the media, Honor plans to start small-batch mass production of robots this year. After production capacity is increased, it will prioritize locking the deployment scenarios to its own offline store guides, using the offline retail network spread across the country as the first commercial experimental field for humanoid robots.

From a business logic perspective, this choice possesses practical advantages. Honor, which holds a massive offline channel, does not lack physical space for product display. Deploying robots in stores can, on one hand, rely on technological hardware to attract foot traffic; on the other hand, real store environments can continuously collect human-robot interaction data to feed back into algorithm iterations. At the same time, the AI interaction and supply chain management experience accumulated in consumer electronics can also be partially transferred to the robot project, which is a natural bargaining chip for a mobile phone manufacturer entering a cross-border field.

However, there are also rational and cautious voices in the market. It needs to be clarified that while Honor describes the motion control algorithms, integrated joint modules, and large models as self-developed, the vast majority of sensing devices, metal structural parts, and core cooling components of the entire machine are all customized and supplied by external supply chain enterprises: core components such as 3D vision cameras, LiDAR, a full set of torso and limb structural parts, and liquid cooling micro-pumps are provided by multiple third-party manufacturers respectively, belonging to a joint customized development model.

This brings about a common industry risk: the performance upper limit of the entire machine is largely constrained by the supply of external components. Achieving eye-catching results in competitions is the result of the joint output of multiple supply chains. When moving from prototype demonstrations to mass deployment, the supply stability of components, cost control, fault repair, and version iteration will all become unavoidable variables. If the core hardware is highly dependent on external customization, once the supply chain experiences changes in delivery, price adjustments, or iteration rhythms, the entire machine project will easily be affected.

Unlike robot enterprises with complete vertical integration, this “full machine integration + external deep customization” model has a fast start, but building a long-term technical moat will be more challenging. Store guides may seem to have low barriers, but the real environment is noisy and the crowds are complex; whether robots can jump out of preset scripts to stably complete reception and explanations, rather than merely performing, still involves uncertainty.

Looking at the entire industry, this is a pain point that all humanoid robot enterprises face together. Currently, most humanoid robots perform excellently in the standardized environments of exhibitions, but once they enter real, ever-changing real-world scenes, their stability is significantly compromised. Novelty can attract onlookers to take photos, but the ultimate proposition for commercial implementation is to continuously produce actual value and balance the input-output account.

Many enterprises treat in-store shopping guides as the first stop for humanoid robots, but there is a trap here that is easily overlooked: attracting traffic is only a short-term dividend, while value implementation is the long-term proposition. Consumers are full of curiosity upon first seeing a humanoid robot, but the novelty will quickly fade after multiple visits. If the robot can only dance and strike poses and cannot undertake substantial shopping guide work, it will eventually only become an expensive display piece in the store.

Big companies' layout of humanoid robots is essentially a preemptive positioning for the next generation of intelligent terminals against the background of intense competition in the existing smartphone market. But positioning does not equal victory; the track never lacks cool prototype models, what is scarce is a landing model that can generate stable profits. Honor holds three cards—capital, channels, and brand—with considerable starting conditions, but a 100,000,000 yuan new company is merely the starting point, by no means a signal of victory.

Technical demonstration, small-batch mass production, and large-scale commercial deployment are three completely different dimensions. Honor's choice to test the waters in its own stores is a pragmatic step, but it is only the beginning of the commercial marathon. The true test in the future lies not in the dazzling sprint records on the track, but in whether the overall machine integration capability can withstand the pressure when facing supply chain fluctuations and complex real-world environments, allowing robots to break out of the "performance prop" positioning and transform into true productivity tools with practical value. After the noise subsides, the humanoid robot industry must ultimately return to its commercial essence.

       Original Title: How to view: 100 million yuan registered capital, “Honor” humanoid robot new company lands?