Q3 2026 robotics earnings scorecard: installed bases profit, humanoid bets burn cash

Q3 2026 robotics results split the industry in two. Companies that sell into a large installed base turned growth into profit, while companies betting on humanoids and new platforms paid for research with margin. That is the reading of MEKAWIRE's scorecard, built only from the filings and results releases published between Oct 20 and Oct 29, 2026, with every figure linked to its document.

The question for investors is whether the second group is early or simply expensive. The filings answer part of it, and the numbers below show where.

The headline numbers, filing by filing

Intuitive Surgical reported revenue of $3,048.7 million for the quarter, up 22% from $2,505.1 million, in an earnings release filed with the SEC on Oct 20. It placed 546 da Vinci systems, 315 of them da Vinci 5, against 427 a year earlier, and its installed base reached 12,094 systems. GAAP net income was $523 million after a $450 million pre-tax antitrust settlement charge.

FANUC said on Oct 23 that July to September sales rose 14.9% to ¥242.7 billion and operating income rose 45.1% to ¥63.2 billion, a 26.0% margin, and it lifted its full-year sales forecast to ¥1,013.7 billion, its first year above ¥1 trillion. Teradyne said in its Oct 28 filing that its robotics segment, Universal Robots and MiR, posted $96 million of revenue and achieved profitability, without giving the amount.

The other column looks different. Tesla's Q3 update of Oct 21 said the first production-quality Optimus robots were built and that Fremont is in early ramp, but it gave no count, rate, customer or price, while GAAP net income fell 43% to $787 million and R&D rose 69% to $2,761 million. Unitree, in its first report as a listed company, posted revenue of RMB 665.0 million, up 69.9%, but attributable net profit fell 17.4% to RMB 112.7 million as quarterly R&D rose 249.6% to RMB 127.0 million. Swancor, the Shanghai-listed company AgiBot controls, lost RMB 255.4 million in the quarter; its filings show RMB 359.6 million of robot R&D in nine months and no robot revenue yet. Doosan Robotics told DART on Oct 29 that sales fell 8.5% on the quarter to KRW 16.175 billion and its operating loss of KRW 13.404 billion equalled 82.9% of revenue.

Which of these lines say something about robots, rather than about cars or chips? That needs a second table.

The robot lines inside the reports

Three derived numbers matter most. Teradyne Robotics' nine-month revenue of $287.2 million is 93% of its full-year 2025 figure of $308.3 million, so the segment is on course to grow for the year even though Q3 slipped 3.9% from Q2. FANUC's robot orders rose 12.6% to ¥103.4 billion, but their share of group orders fell from 44.7% to 33.8% because CNC orders grew far faster; FANUC's robot sales in China fell 14.3% on the year. Unitree's nine-month gross margin, by our calculation from its filing, was 54.0% against 59.7% a year earlier, a fall that came before the R&D jump hit the income statement.

Method: figures are as filed; changes are year on year unless marked; derived ratios (share of orders, margin, share of prior-year revenue) are MEKAWIRE calculations from the same filing, stated in each linked story. Currency is the reporting currency; no conversions.