Alibaba and Unitree are cooking something 🤖
Unitree's new humanoid R1 showed up at Alibaba's Xixi campus yesterday, sitting at a computer typing "Invitation" on screen. Employees say it's prepping for a new project called "Shumaitong" — clearly a mashup of Unitree + AliExpress.
The announcement is reportedly coming mid-April at a Shenzhen brand event. Alibaba sources confirmed details next week. Unitree actually opened an AliExpress store back in March 2025, so this looks like upgrading from basic onboarding to serious strategic partnership.
The news sent China's humanoid robot stocks flying today — Wanxiang Qianchao hit limit-up, Wuzhou Xinchun up 9%+, robot ETFs up 2-3%.
$BABA-W(09988.HK) also up 2.8% today to 127.68. Though Jefferies just cut target from $212 to $185 (MaaS as key growth driver next 5 years) and UBS trimmed to HK$166 from HK$185 — both still Buy-rated.
AliExpress has been pushing "brand globalization + overseas fulfillment" for Chinese brands. Bringing Unitree in feels like adding some serious hardware cred while lowering the barrier for Chinese robotics to go global.
More details next week. Anyone holding $Alibaba(BABA.US) or robot-related names? 👀
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