Chinese robot manufacturer forced to retract erroneous sales listed in annual report
Appliance maker denied buying any robots from company last year
A leading robot maker in Central China, Shenzhen-listed Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control (HNC) has admitted its financial report for last year included “inaccurate information” on its robot sales.
In its 2015 financial report, released in February, HNC listed deals with state-owned appliance manufacturer Gree Electric as being among the most important sales achievements of its new robot unit.
But HNC put a retraction on its official website early this week after mainland media reported that GREE had not bought any robots from HNC last year.
Shares of HNC have since slumped more than 20 per cent.
Doubts over HNC’s true sales could also affect other Chinese robot makers, whose sales figures are key to their eligibility for hundreds of millions of yuan in government subsidies.
It could be misleading for both investors and governments in evaluating the true size of the domestic industrial robot market
Many robot manufacturers on the mainland are dependent on government subsidies to prop up their businesses as the authorities look to robotics to overcome labour shortages and spur innovation to counter the economic slowdown and spend hundreds of billions of yuan on replacing human labour with robots, according to industry insiders.