Hajra Naz
Global humanoid robot shipments jumped significantly in 2025. Shipments reached 18,000 units that year. This marked a 508% increase compared to the year before, according to recent IDC analysis data. Chinese manufacturers captured a dominant share of global sales. Specifically, they took 90% of all sales worldwide. This signals a decisive shift.
The industry is moving from research prototypes to scaled commercial production. For Pakistan, this creates a narrow window of opportunity. The country needs to build manufacturing capacity soon. Otherwise, Chinese competitors could dominate South Asia entirely.
China followed a state-backed playbook throughout this growth. Pakistan could study this approach and replicate elements locally through different mechanisms. Unitree and AgiBot shipped 10,668 units combined in 2025 alone. This generated $440 million in revenue.
Orders exceeded 35,000 units in total. Pakistan’s robotics sector remains fragmented by comparison. Cobot operates restaurant robots across three cities currently. NextGen Robotix won Pakistan’s national robotics competition back in 2024. The company also received funding from a government innovation program.
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Pakistan does possess genuine technology export credentials. These support robotics manufacturing ambitions going forward. Pakistan’s information and communication technology exports reached $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2025 to 2026. This reflects 20% year-over-year growth, continuing steadily.
Freelancers earned a record $1.6 billion in export earnings during that same fiscal year. The Pakistan Software Export Board leads delegations regularly too. Nearly 1,000 professionals attend major international technology conferences annually as part of these efforts.
Still, Pakistan remains at a strategic disadvantage. This is especially true compared to direct South Asian competitors on automation specifically. India’s operational robot stock reached 52,570 units in 2024. This placed India 10th worldwide in robotics adoption today.
Indian manufacturers installed 4,070 industrial robots in 2024 alone. That represents a 15% increase from the previous year. Pakistan and Bangladesh face real challenges by comparison. They deal with regulatory barriers. They also face limited access to advanced technology, according to Statista’s Southern Asia analysis.
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Morgan Stanley has made significant projections for this market. The firm expects the humanoid robot market to reach $38 billion by 2035. It projects growth to $5 trillion by 2050. Pakistani manufacturers could still capture regional export contracts. This opportunity exists before Chinese competitors fully establish supply chain control throughout South Asia.
However, structural barriers currently constrain Pakistani entrepreneurs. These barriers limit their ability to scale production operations. They also make it harder to compete globally with established players.
Pakistan’s cascading tariff structure creates real challenges too. It makes imported intermediate inputs expensive for exporters competing internationally today. The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics has warned about this issue directly.
High tariffs shift resources away from tradable export sectors systematically, the institute notes. An investment of $50 million to $100 million in manufacturing infrastructure could change this trajectory. Such investment could establish Pakistan as the region’s second-tier producer in this space.
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This competitive window is closing quickly, though. Within three years, Chinese manufacturers will likely establish supply chain dominance across South Asian markets. That dominance would become largely irreversible at that point. Pakistani companies need to scale their operations now, before that window closes entirely.
