China’s robot rental market is gaining momentum as demand surges for corporate annual galas and commercial performances toward the end of the year, pushing daily rental prices from several hundred yuan to as much as 10,000yuan (about $1,380) per unit.

The seasonal spike has driven the rapid emergence of robot rental service platforms across the country. A Shanghai-based rental company told Yicai that it represents several major domestic robot brands, including Unitree Robotics and AgiBot, also known as Zhiyuan Robotics Technology.

The market’s expansion follows the high-profile appearance of Unitree robots at China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala last year, which helped popularize service-based applications for humanoid and performance robots and accelerated the development of a robotics-as-a-service business model in China.

Under this model, companies and event organizers can gain access to robots through relatively low rental fees rather than purchasing expensive hardware outright, lowering barriers to adoption and enabling a form of “gig economy” for robots, industry participants say.

According to earlier estimates from AgiBot, China’s robot rental market has already exceeded 1billionyuan (about $138million) in size and is expected to reach at least 10billionyuan (around $1.4billion) next year. AgiBot has also launched its own rental platform, Qingtian Rental, reflecting growing competition and confidence in the sector’s commercial potential.

Industry observers say the combination of falling hardware costs, improving robot performance and rising demand from marketing, entertainment and corporate events is likely to sustain growth in the rental segment, making it an increasingly important channel for the commercialization of robotics in China.