The industrial explosion of humanoid robots has thrust the futuristic-sounding concept of "electronic skin" into the spotlight. As humanoid robots begin to perform applications such as harness insertion, precision assembly, and material handling on production lines, everyone is discussing dexterous hands, large models, and embodied intelligence. Yet, few notice that electronic skin, which truly gives machines a "sense of touch," is the critical sensing entry point hidden behind the scenes.
In July, MIR officially released the "2025 China Electronic Skin Market Research Report," providing an in-depth analysis of the electronic skin track from five major dimensions: industry definition, technology routes, downstream applications, market size forecasting, and vendor competitive landscape.
01. What Is Electronic Skin?
Electronic skin is not a brand-new concept that emerged solely because of humanoid robots.
Long before the humanoid robot industry boom, electronic skin had already been deployed in consumer electronics and smart home scenarios in the form of flexible tactile sensors. Examples include pressure distribution detection in smart mattresses, pressure-sensitive interaction in touchpads, foot pressure monitoring in smart insoles, and touch feedback in interactive toys. Behind these products lies the application of the same technology in different scenarios. In the past, the industry mostly referred to it by its technical attributes. It was not until the humanoid robot track gained momentum that the more communicative term "electronic skin" truly stepped onto the industry's front stage.
Technology Routes
Electronic skin technology routes include piezoresistive, piezoelectric, capacitive, Hall/electromagnetic, and visual-tactile directions. Each route differs in performance, cost, structural complexity, and mass production difficulty. Currently, there is no absolute "optimal route"; the key lies in whether it can be commercialized and its degree of scenario adaptation. Judging the value of a technology route is not about how high the parameter ceiling is, but about answering four core questions: Is it adapted to the scenario? Can it be mass-produced? Can the cost be controlled? And can a closed loop be achieved?
Looking toward the longer-term goal of human-like tactile perception, multi-principle fusion is emerging as a clear direction for technological evolution.
A single sensing mechanism often struggles to simultaneously balance static pressure, dynamic slip, temperature perception, anti-interference capability, and cost control. Signal decoupling is highly difficult, and it is also susceptible to temperature drift, hysteresis, and environmental interference. However, through the complementary combination of different mechanisms such as piezoresistive, capacitive, piezoelectric, and magnetic sensing, electronic skin can be upgraded from "single pressure detection" to a "multimodal tactile perception system." This not only improves stability and anti-interference capabilities through cross-validation of multi-source signals but also simultaneously covers multi-dimensional information such as static contact, dynamic slip, transient impact, and temperature changes. For complex interaction scenarios like robot dexterous hands, human-machine interaction, and medical care, multi-principle fusion is the core path to breaking through the performance bottleneck of a single route and achieving human-like multimodal perception.
02. Evolution of Electronic Skin Application Scenarios: From Single-Wheel Drive in Consumer Electronics to Multi-Scenario Resonance
According to statistics from MIR, the domestic electronic skin market size in 2025 was 208 million RMB, with consumer electronics still being the largest stock application direction. Entering 2026, the market size is expected to climb to 390 million RMB, a year-on-year growth of 87.5%.
The rapid growth of the electronic skin market is driven by the obvious structural shift in downstream applications, with the core growth momentum gradually shifting towards a multi-wheel drive of robots/dexterous hands, consumer electronics, and automotive cockpits.
Note: Only revenues from electronic skin and solutions featuring flexibility, array configuration, and tactile/pressure/strain sensing characteristics are counted; this excludes ordinary membrane switches, rigid pressure sensors, ordinary touch modules, and medical electronic patches that only monitor physiological/biochemical indicators such as ECG, blood glucose, body temperature, and sweat.
Robots/Dexterous Hands: Robots are currently the most imaginative track for electronic skin and the direction with the fastest structural growth. The core growth logic lies in the simultaneous volume ramp-up of humanoid robots and dexterous hands, directly driving the demand for tactile sensor integration. According to data from MIR, the shipment volume of humanoid robots in mainland China in 2025 was nearly 15,000 units, accounting for 84.7% of the global share. It is expected to maintain a growth rate of over 50% consecutively from 2026 to 2030, with shipments expected to exceed 200,000 units by 2030. Meanwhile, the dexterous hand market is also growing synchronously. In 2025, the total industry output of dexterous hands reached nearly 30,000 units. Humanoid robots are its primary application carrier, with leading enterprises including INSPIRE Robots, Lingxin Qiaoshou, BrainCo, and Agibot. {Note: This mainly refers to the output of dexterous hands actually applied in humanoid robots (including dexterous hands from third-party manufacturers and self-developed dexterous hands by humanoid robot body manufacturers), research institutes/universities, data collection, collaborative robotic arms, bionic prosthetics, and other special operation scenarios.}
Automotive Smart Cockpits: Automotive cockpits are the second largest deterministic incremental track for electronic skin. Its core characteristics are multi-point replication and high automotive-grade value. Once integrated into the supply chain, it can form stable batch delivery.
Consumer Electronics and Smart Home: Consumer electronics are currently the most commercially mature scenario and the largest application direction in terms of market size in 2025, covering diverse products such as flexible musical instruments, interactive toys, AI glasses touch control, smart insoles, and pressure-sensitive touchpads. However, affected by the overall terminal market entering a mature stage, new demand in consumer electronics mainly comes from tactile iteration and interaction upgrades. Subsequent growth elasticity is relatively limited, and the market share will gradually decline.
03. Scaling Inflection Point in 2028: Domestic Capital Dominates the Local Market
In terms of the competitive landscape, the domestic market is basically dominated by domestic manufacturers. Foreign brands, limited by long customization cycles and high selling prices, hold an overall market share of only about 5%.
Currently, local electronic skin manufacturers have formed a clear competitive landscape, with leading players differentiating in technology routes and focusing on different positioning.
Tier 1
Huaweike and Tashan Technology rank at the forefront in terms of mass production capacity and shipment volume. In 2025, Huaweike's dexterous hand assembly volume exceeded 10,000 units. Its electronic skin is stably supplied to leading dexterous hand manufacturers such as INSPIRE Robots, Agibot, Lingxin Qiaoshou, and BrainCo, with a market share of over 70%. Tashan Technology's revenue broke 100 million RMB in 2024, with electronic skin contributing nearly half of its revenue in 2025. Its self-developed tactile chips cover leading customers such as BrainCo.
Tier 2
Paxini builds competitive barriers with differentiated technology routes, pioneering the Hall magnetoelectric solution, and establishing a large-scale data collection factory, securing over 1 billion RMB in financing. Moxian Technology focuses on "percolation-type" flexible sensor technology, adopting a laser direct structuring material ink process to achieve high-precision sensing on curved substrates.
Tier 3
Fulai New Material and Nowsda rely on the supply chain and cash flow advantages of listed companies to actively layout domestic and overseas markets. Fulai New Material has secured an order for 10,000 sets from Lingxin Qiaoshou in 2026, and its overseas market is bound to Tesla, accumulating momentum for subsequent volume ramp-up. Nowsda, relying on Hanwei Technology, ranks at the forefront in mass production capacity, with overseas markets laid out in North America, Japan, South Korea, and Europe.
Overall, the electronic skin industry is expanding from a technical focus to mass production capabilities and scenario replication. Leading manufacturers have entered a phase of capacity expansion and customer volume ramp-up; small and medium-sized manufacturers are finding differentiated positioning in segmented tracks to avoid falling behind in homogeneous competition.
04. Core Competitiveness of Enterprises: A Panoramic Breakdown of Six Major Rankings
The industry's evaluation system is also evolving synchronously. In the past, everyone only focused on product parameters. Now, comprehensive judgments must be made from six dimensions: product performance, mass production delivery, commercialization landing, scenario expansion, customer depth, and capital strength. After all, being able to make a sample is one thing; being able to mass-produce and deliver, pass automotive-grade verification, and enter the leading supply chain is the core competitiveness at this stage.
Based on these six major dimensions, MIR released six detailed sub-rankings in the report, comprehensively outlining the competitive echelons and real landscape of the domestic electronic skin track from different perspectives.
01. Comprehensive Product Performance Ranking
The evaluation of electronic skin products cannot only look at sensing modalities and parameter ceilings, but must also focus on long-term stability and consistency. This ranking comprehensively evaluates based on six major indicators: sensing dimensions, sensitivity, accuracy, stability and consistency, measurement range, and lifespan.
Overall, Daimon Robotics and Huaweike tie for first place with a score of 8.7: Dameng leads in sensing dimensions, sensitivity, accuracy, and lifespan, while Huaweike ranks at the top with more balanced performance and stronger stability and consistency. Tashan Technology ranks third with the highest score in stability and consistency. Paxini and Tujian Technology have strong sensing and basic performance, but their lower scores in stability and consistency are the main factors affecting their comprehensive rankings.
02. Public Mass Production Capability Ranking
The mass production capability of electronic skin cannot be judged solely by "whether a sample can be made," but should focus on whether it possesses a replicable manufacturing foundation, traceable process quality management, and stable, consistent batch delivery capabilities. Therefore, this ranking evaluates manufacturers' mass production capabilities from three dimensions: number of public production lines, quality system, and yield rate/consistency.
By the end of 2025, the mass production capability of domestic electronic skin has entered the "small-batch manufacturing verification" stage: Huaweike leads in the mass production of finished robot electronic skin, Hanwei/Nowsda demonstrates the scale manufacturing capability of core components, Tashan Technology enters the forefront relying on customer introduction and shipment verification, Juqiao Industry has formed capacity evidence in the fabric electronic skin route, and Paxini already has a foundation for commercial delivery but needs to strengthen the disclosure of capacity and yield rate.
03. 2025 China Robot Electronic Skin Assembly Volume Ranking (Calculated by Hand)
In 2025, the assembly volume of robot electronic skin presented a pattern of "one superpower and multiple strong players": calculated based on an average of 5 pieces of electronic skin per dexterous hand, Huaweike leads with an assembly volume of about 10,000 dexterous hands, reflecting its batch delivery capability for robot electronic skin. Tashan Technology, Paxini, and Moxian Technology are in the second tier, mainly relying on the introduction of dexterous hand/robot customers to form shipments. Fulai New Material and Hanwei/Nowsda have entered the shipment stage, but their scale is still in a catching-up position.
04. Downstream Application Industry Coverage Ranking
The downstream industry coverage of electronic skin cannot be judged solely by whether a manufacturer mentions a certain industry, but by whether it has publicly disclosed the corresponding product form, solution, or application case. Therefore, this ranking only includes application industries supported by public materials in the coverage scope, focusing on measuring the replicability and scenario extension capability of manufacturers' electronic skin products in different downstream scenarios.
05. Stable Supply Coverage Ranking for Leading Downstream Dexterous Hand Manufacturers
Dexterous hands are the core landing point with the most commercialization verification value for electronic skin in robot scenarios. Compared to the general statistics of "robot industry coverage," this ranking focuses more on whether electronic skin manufacturers have entered the stable supply system of leading dexterous hand manufacturers.
06. Financing and Valuation Ranking (As of the End of Q1 2026)
The financing and valuation ranking measures manufacturers' resource acquisition capabilities and growth expectations in the capital market. This ranking takes financing rounds, estimated financing amount, and estimated valuation as the three core indicators, and adopts a 3:3:4 weighted scoring system. Valuation has the highest weight, used to reflect the capital market's comprehensive pricing of the enterprise's long-term growth space and scarcity.
As of Q1 2026, the top 5 in financing and valuation have formed a layered structure: Paxini leads with a Series B round of over 1 billion RMB and a valuation at the tens of billions level. Fulai New Material and Hanwei/Nowsda rank high relying on listed company platforms and refinancing/market capitalization support. Tashan Technology enters the growth-oriented leading echelon with hundreds of millions of RMB in Series A3/A4 financing. Huaweike is in a rapid rising stage after its Series A+ round. Capital recognition continues to increase. Overall, the capital side pays more attention to electronic skin manufacturers with technological scarcity, industrialization capabilities, and volume ramp-up expectations in robot scenarios.
Looking at the six major rankings, the competitive echelons in the domestic electronic skin industry have clearly taken shape: Huaweike is the only manufacturer leading in the four core dimensions of product performance, mass production capability, robot shipments, and leading customer coverage, with the most prominent comprehensive industrial advantages. Tashan Technology achieves balanced development in technology and commercialization, firmly staying in the first tier. Paxini has gained strong capital support with its differentiated technology route, forming unique competitiveness in the high-end market.
It is not difficult to see that the industry competition logic of electronic skin has quietly changed: in the early years, the competition was about whose technology was more cutting-edge and parameters were more eye-catching; now, it is about who can mass-produce and deliver, enter the leading supply chain, and achieve cross-scenario reuse. As the industry steps from the concept stage into the eve of industrialization, the competition of comprehensive industrial capabilities is the main melody of track competition going forward.
Conclusion
Looking back, the industrial significance of electronic skin goes far beyond being just a supporting component for humanoid robots; it is also a microcosm of flexible electronics technology penetrating from the consumer end to industrial, automotive, and medical fields. Electronic skin is currently at a critical node transitioning from concept verification to scaled mass production. The next two to three years will be a crucial period for technology polishing, cost reduction, and customer verification. Whoever can cross the three hurdles of mass production yield rate, scenario adaptation, and cost control first will be able to gain a firm foothold in this tens-of-billions-level perception upgrade.