A humanoid service robot is seen at the front desk of a restaurant inside the world’s first humanoid robot 4S store, Robot Mall, in Yizhuang, Beijing on August 4, 2025. Photo: VCG

More than 19,000 robots and related products have been sold during a recent robot shopping festival in Beijing, also known as the world's first robot consumer themed festival, generating total sales of over 330 million yuan ($46 million), the Global Times learned from the event organizers on Saturday.

The positive sales demonstrated a strong consumer stimulus effect, and it also signaled that new technologies are fostering diverse consumption scenarios in China, further enhancing the quality and resilience of domestic consumption, according to Zhong Xiangyun, a humanoid robot industry observer.

The E-Town Robot Consumption Festival, running from August 2 to 17, was organized by the administrative committee of the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town. 

The festival also serves as a platform that bringing cutting-edge hardware into consumers' living rooms, Zhong told the Global Times on Saturday, adding that "it shows how quickly China is moving from technical breakthroughs to mass-market application."

According to Beijing E-town, a 70-million-yuan government consumption voucher program proved the most powerful accelerator during the festival. Individual consumers can receive instant discounts of up to 1,500 yuan ($211) in subsidies for robot product purchases and corporate buyers up to 250,000 yuan. The subsidy scheme directly triggered 700 million yuan in robot sales.

The festival also marked the debut of the Robot Mall, a 4,000-square-meter "robot 4S" store, while shopping malls and e-commerce platform JD.com host sales campaigns. Within 16 days, the store received millions of orders for high-end humanoid robots and other products, with orders exceeding 1 million yuan accounting for 25 percent of the total, said Wang Yifan, the store manager.

The robot festival also drove viral buzz on multiple social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, as well as short-video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou. The event related hashtags soared to the top of China's tech-trending list on the opening day of the 2025 World Robot Conference. Short-video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou clocked 450 million views; across the entire festival, online mentions approached 500 million, said the organizers, according to Beijing E-town. 

Retail districts surrounding the festival grounds cashed in as well. Six major malls in Beijing E-Town welcomed 1.6 million visitors during the event, a 20 percent year-on-year jump, and rang up 160 million yuan in sales—30 percent more than the same period last year, said the Beijing E-town.

The highly-anticipated 2025 World Robot Conference has showcased innovative applications of humanoid robots in diverse scenarios such as industrial manufacturing, healthcare and household services, Zhong said. "But only those machines that proved to be practical, affordable, versatile and of effective use for consumers will make the leap from expo stars to everyday essentials."

The industry analyst noted that the festival is a trail-blazing move that dovetails with China's push to turbo-charge robotics research and development, cultivate new quality productive forces, unlock latent domestic demand and carve out fresh engines for service-sector growth.

China is by far the fastest growing robot market in the world. The country has the highest number of annual installations, and since 2016 it has each year had the largest operational stock of robots, according to a report released by the International Federation of Robotics in September, 2024.