Kohei Fujimura
Exoskeletons, the wearable powered suits that augment physical activity, are moving well beyond their traditional roles in medicine and heavy industry and into everyday life in China, as appliance makers and startups race into a nascent but rapidly growing consumer market.
Home appliance giant Haier Group put its bet on display at the World Robot Conference in Beijing in August, showing off three generations of its AI sports exoskeletons. The flagship W3 model weighs about 2 kilograms and retails for 15,999 yuan, and the company already sells nearly 1,000 units a month through 16 offline stores, evidence that a device once confined to rehab clinics and factory floors is starting to find genuine retail demand.
The broader numbers back that up. China’s exoskeleton market reached more than 1.6 billion yuan (about $237 million) in 2025 across roughly 26,000 units shipped. Medical rehabilitation still accounts for the bulk of that, at about 1.42 billion yuan on some 3,200 units, led by players like Fourier Intelligence, Chengtian Technology and Milebot. But the consumer-assist segment, the one aimed at ordinary shoppers rather than patients or factory workers, posted close to 110 million yuan on around 19,000 units, with Chengtian, Kenqing Technology and Jike leading that push. A separate leisure category is emerging too: Hypershell alone has sold more than 30,000 units globally, with prices now landing in the same range as a mid-to-high-end smartphone rather than the specialized medical-device price tags of a few years ago.
Nowhere is real-world demand clearer than at Mount Tai, one of China’s most popular hiking destinations, where 500 Kenqing exoskeleton units are deployed for rental to climbers. Usage rates hit 80% during peak season, with hikers paying by the duration of their climb, a strong signal that consumers are willing to pay for a device that makes a physically demanding activity meaningfully easier.
Investors have taken notice. The sector closed 19 financing deals worth 2.2 billion yuan in 2025, a sharp jump from just eight deals worth 292 million yuan the year before. Falling costs are helping close the gap between medical-grade and consumer-grade devices too: one Hangzhou firm’s rehabilitation exoskeleton, priced around $1,200 today, is expected to fall below 10,000 yuan as production scales, with newer consumer models already running about eight hours on a single charge at under 2 kilograms.
Taken together, the shift suggests China’s exoskeleton makers are betting the next wave of growth won’t come from hospitals or factories at all, but from hikers, tourists and everyday consumers looking for a physical boost that, until recently, only came with a specialist’s price tag.
