STEP Electric, the elevator-control and industrial-automation group, returned to profit in 2025 with a net profit of 5.5 million yuan, ending a three-year loss cycle that had reached a cumulative 1.7 billion yuan between 2022 and 2024.
The recovery rested on two supports: Haier Group taking control of the company, and a broader rebound in China’s industrial-robot market.
The first half of 2026 shows the limits of that recovery. Revenue rose 15 per cent year on year to 1.891 billion yuan, but the group slid back into the red with a loss of 11.28 million yuan, and a loss of 33.55 million after stripping non-recurring items. Management blamed a shift in revenue mix that lowered gross margin, together with higher spending on product research, market expansion, supply-chain management and digital transformation.
The contrast with rival Estun is sharp. Estun’s revenue grew only 1.14 per cent in the first half to 2.577 billion yuan, yet its net profit jumped 2,314 per cent to 161 million yuan, with overall gross margin up 4.17 points to 31.81 per cent and its robotics and smart-manufacturing segment margin up 4.69 points to 31.69 per cent.
STEP’s own robotics line is growing fast on Haier’s backing. After joining the Haier ecosystem, STEP draws on the COSMOPlat industrial-internet platform and the scenario resources of Haier’s more than 160 global manufacturing centres, giving its products real shop-floor applications. Its industrial robots and inverters are already deployed in Haier factories, and its embodied-intelligence robots are in trials at Haier plants.
China’s industrial-robot shipments reached 188,000 units in the first half of 2026, up 15.8 per cent, and local makers lifted their combined share to 60 per cent by the second quarter. Within that, STEP’s robot products and systems brought in 459 million yuan in the half, up 44.48 per cent, lifting the segment to 24.3 per cent of group revenue.
The catch is price. Intense competition keeps pushing whole-machine prices down, so STEP’s rising revenue has not yet become rising profit, a pattern that pits it against first-tier local players Estun and Inovance, with Estun holding a 9.85 per cent China shipment share in the half, the highest of any brand.
STEP has leant on AI to defend margin, building the SMART ROBOT platform that pairs 3D reverse modelling with AI vision to remove the need for repeated manual teaching, and offering smart welding, cutting and polishing. For European automation suppliers, the signal is that Chinese robot makers are being squeezed on price at home while still posting double-digit volume growth, a cost pressure that sooner or later reaches export markets and forces incumbents to answer on total cost, not feature lists.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://robot.ofweek.com/2026-09/ART-8321202-12003-30704787.html.