Verifying a Robot Supplier in a 587,000-Company Directory
Published: 2026-10-21 10:10 (UTC+8) | Data as of: 2026-10-21 | Source: Zhilianhai robot company directory
What the directory actually contains
As of 2026-10-21 the directory holds 587,277 robot-related company records across 296 cities. Each record carries a name, province and city, a robot type, and excerpts of the registered business scope.
| Robot type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Unclassified (robot-related only) | 387,788 | 66.0% |
| Industrial robots | 198,573 | 33.8% |
| Robot components | 230 | <0.1% |
| Service robots | 186 | <0.1% |
| Medical robots | 90 | <0.1% |
Two thirds of the records are not broken down by machine type. That is a property of public registry data, not of the market: most business scopes simply say "robotics" or "automation equipment". Treat the type column as a filter for narrowing a list, never as evidence of capability.
Check one: name versus business scope
The three usable text fields are the name, the short introduction and the business scope. Read them together before contacting anyone.
- Name says "robot", scope says trading or leasing. The company may be a distributor, integrator or service provider rather than an original equipment manufacturer. Still useful, but the commercial role is different.
- Name does not say "robot", scope does. Plenty of system integrators hide behind names like "automation equipment" or "intelligent machinery". Filtering on the name alone will miss them.
A quick read: does the scope say manufacture, production and R&D, or does it say sales, leasing and technical services? The verbs define the boundary.
Check two: registered address versus plant
The directory stores province and city only. The busiest cities today are Shanghai 38,205, Beijing 36,797, Shenzhen 31,003, Hangzhou 25,765 and Guangzhou 25,412 records.
City-level data is enough to build a candidate pool and nothing more. A company can be registered in a city-centre office while its line sits in an industrial town an hour away. Confirming the plant takes either a business licence plus site photos, or a visit.
Check three: public records you can verify
One honest limitation: the website field in the directory is currently empty for every record. The directory does not hand you a company website, so verification is your job. What to look for:
- A live website whose ICP filing entity matches the licence holder;
- Equipment lists, installation photos, acceptance reports;
- Patent, software copyright or test report numbers that can be looked up;
- A landline or corporate mailbox rather than a single mobile number.
Turning the checks into a shortlist
Verified suppliers usually fall into three buckets: contact now, needs documents, and wrong role, park it. That triage beats ranking by size, because the most common procurement mistake in robotics is not choosing a small supplier, it is choosing the wrong role.
Browse by region in the company directory, compare application scenarios in the robotics news section, or read the data methodology on our about page.
Scope and limits
- Inclusion means the record is indexed from public information. It is not a certification, a capability rating or a capacity claim.
- All figures are as of 2026-10-21 and change as records are cleaned or added; cite the date when quoting.
- City fields reflect the registered address, not the plant or R&D site.