Robot export logs robust start to 2026 in first quarter

China's robot export got off to a solid start in the first quarter of 2026, with total export value hitting 11.32 billion yuan (more than 1.66 billion U.S. dollars) and products sold to 148 countries and regions, according to the latest data from the General Administration of Customs.

A company which primarily produces four- and six-axis robotic arms in Wujiang District, Suzhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province, saw export value in the first quarter exceeding that of the whole of last year.

"We are exporting to more and more countries, so we are offering more and more language versions. For example, we used to only have English, Japanese, and Chinese versions before, but now we have Vietnamese and Korean versions as well," said Dong Hao, chairman of Linkhou Robotics Co., Ltd.

In the first quarter, China's industrial robot export reached 3.16 billion yuan (nearly 465 million U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 42 percent.

Industry insiders said that in the past, China's industrial robots heavily relied on imports. As the technical capabilities of domestically produced robots continuously improved, China achieved its first net export of industrial robots in 2025.

Currently, the application scenarios of China-made robots continue to expand, covering various subcategories including industrial robots and cleaning robots, and the number of export tariff codes has grown to 13.

"Changes in robot tariff codes in recent years can be described as a shift from broad categorization to refined classification. For example, a newly added dedicated tariff code for collaborative robots in 2023 signaled the industrialization of human-robot collaboration technology. In 2026, new tariff codes for intelligent bionic robots and cleaning robots joined the tally. These increasingly refined and updated tariff classifications reflect the gradual maturation of the robotics industry's segmentation and demonstrate the continuous expansion of application scenarios of our homegrown robots," said Qian Weining, deputy director general of Wujiang Customs.

Robot export logs robust start to 2026 in first quarter

Micro-dramas born in China are now taking the U.S. market by storm, and according to a popular American actor, the U.S. film and television industry is looking to copy China's playbook to replicate the commercial success of its vertical-screen short dramas.

Matt William Knowles is the first non-Asian to graduate in acting from the Beijing Film Academy and has starred in multiple hit Chinese TV dramas, including "Red Sorghum" and "Eastern Battlefield". Now, as he has become the face of America's vertical micro-drama boom, he said the experience feels nothing short of surreal.

"I didn't expect that the vertical series would be a thing several years ago, and now they've popped up and grown so fast," said Knowles.

In his view, vertical micro-dramas have long ceased to be a niche phenomenon. In the U.S., they've already built a huge and fast-growing audience.

"I think a couple of years ago, there was a smaller market or type of person who was watching this series, and now there are more and more people who are watching. I had a friend who said he was on a construction site recently, and there were a bunch of construction workers, and they were all watching a vertical series together," he said.

As an insider, Knowles has observed a notable shift in the U.S. film and television industry in recent years: a growing trend of looking to China for inspiration. Backed by hard market data, the once-supreme Hollywood is now filled with professionals eager to decode the business secrets behind China's micro-drama success.

"Several years ago, China was usually bringing over talent from Hollywood to China to learn from them. But now you have this interesting thing that's happening with vertical series, where vertical series started in China. And now people in America are trying to figure out: how can we copy this thing and make money off it? I think a lot of people are studying what's going on in China," he said.

Hollywood taking notes from China's micro-drama playbook: U.S. actor