Bernstein: Humanoid Robot Payback Period Falls Below 2.5 Years in Four Key Scenarios, 2031 Shipments Seen at 1 Million Units

According to Chaowang Research, Bernstein’s August 25 research report indicates that in four key scenarios—city patrol, warehouse palletizing, factory material handling and inspection, and last-mile delivery—the payback period for patrols has already dropped below two years. The payback periods for warehouse and factory scenarios are approximately 2.7 years in the U.S., while China’s factory scenario stands at 6.7 years. To reach the 2.5-year threshold for accelerated adoption, robot prices in China must fall by 30% to 50%, and in the U.S. by 5% to 40%. Bernstein projects that global annual shipments of humanoid robots will reach one million units by 2031, with these four scenarios contributing roughly 50%. Bernstein notes that, drawing on lessons from the electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery sectors, costs typically decline by 15% to 18% with each doubling of production volume, indicating that price will not pose a long-term barrier. The deployable market across these four scenarios amounts to approximately 10 million units in China and 1.2 million in the U.S. The report recommends tracking market leaders along three dimensions: actual commercial sales growth trajectories, performance enhancement trajectories, and the trend of moving closer to the center of the industrial ecosystem. Once payback periods dip below 2.5 years, procurement decisions will shift from “whether to try” to “why not buy.”