AGIBOT named as the company behind the Šabac robot factory
On 12 August 2026 Jagoda Lazarević, Serbia's Minister of Internal and Foreign Trade, said that AGIBOT would open the humanoid-robot factory in Šabac together with Minth at the end of August — in her words, the company's first factory in Europe. The pairing itself is not new: the two companies have been named together since February. Her statement added a ranking: citing a new market report, she presented AGIBOT as the world's largest humanoid-robot maker and backed that with its first-half figures.
What the numbers say
The figures come from a first-half 2026 report by Smart Analytics Global (SAG), a US market research firm, published on 10 August:
- Market: about 19,100 humanoid robots shipped worldwide, up 272% year on year; Chinese makers account for more than 97% of them.
- AGIBOT: about 8,400 units, up 562%, a 44% share and first place — SAG says it overtook Unitree.
- Unitree: about 5,900 units, up 170%, a 31% share.
Two caveats matter for a buyer. SAG also counts wheeled robots with a humanoid upper body, and AGIBOT's range includes the wheeled G-series: its 15,000th robot, announced on 28 June, was a G2. And rankings depend on the analyst — Omdia, cited by AGIBOT, had already put the company first for 2025, with 5,168 units and a 39% share. Unit counts show how many robots a company ships, not how many of them do sustained industrial work.
Why Šabac
AGIBOT is young: it was founded in Shanghai in February 2023 by former Huawei engineers Deng Taihua and Peng Zhihui. It is not coming to Serbia alone. Minth, the Chinese automotive-parts group, signed a three-year strategic cooperation agreement with AGIBOT in March 2025 covering robot exteriors, wireless charging and flexible manufacturing, and in February 2026 became its sales partner for Europe. Minth has worked in Europe for more than 15 years and runs plants in Loznica and Šabac. The town, in other words, is where the partner already works. The company and its European launch are covered in our profile of AGIBOT and the report on its Munich line-up.
What the statement left open
The minister gave a month but no details. The statement did not say which AGIBOT models Šabac will build, how many a year, how many people it will employ, or how much of each robot will be made in Serbia rather than assembled from imported parts. Those answers decide what “made in Serbia” will mean for a buyer.
What we'll watch
Whether the factory opens at the end of August as announced, which robots come off the first line, and what share of the work stays in Šabac.
Sources
- Tanjug — Lazarević: Humanoidne robote u Srbiji proizvodiće kompanija AGIBOT
- Kurir Biznis — AGIBOT otvara prvu fabriku humanoidnih robota u Srbiji
- SAG — Global humanoid robot shipments in 1H 2026
- AGIBOT — 15,000th robot rolls off the production line
- Yicai Global — AgiBot taps Minth Group to drive European rollout
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