Joe
Full-Time Trader/Investor, Semiconductor & AI Infrastructure Inflection Points
Vishay Precision Group has at least 10-15x upside to a $10B market cap if robotics is even half of what Elon Musk and other experts predict. It supplies one of the hardest hardware parts to make, has three customers prototyping, and trades at only about $700M. Low trading volume suggests there are no sellers. x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group's newer robotics sensor business, working with two leading Western robotics makers, could make it a 10-15x if volume production orders arrive. Rumored customers are Tesla and either Figure AI or Boston Dynamics, though robotics revenue is still in the prototype phase. The already profitable legacy industrial business limits downside, making the risk-reward decent, and a low-volume selloff offers patient investors an entry point. x.com x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group is a pick-and-shovel play on humanoid robots, which need large volumes of strain gages and precision torque sensors where VPG is a global technology leader. It is already in the pre-production supply chains of four humanoid developers, and management expects its robot revenue, $4 million in 2025, to compound 50% a year. Its bulk metal foil resistors are essential to AI chip test equipment and server boards, and Q1 brought record defense resistor orders. x.comÂ
A sharply higher humanoid shipment forecast supports robotics suppliers even as sentiment struggles. JPMorgan now sees 1.8 million units by 2030, about 152% CAGR. Ouster offers broad perception exposure through Rev8, Stereolabs and software; Harmonic Drive makes rotary actuators, Regal Rexnord frameless torque motors and linear actuators, VPG force/torque sensors for joints and grippers, and One Stop Systems rugged edge AI compute for field robots. x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group looks attractively valued at about $1.5B, or 5x sales, after a pullback, with possible humanoid robot upside. Revenue is $300M and growing 17%, gross margin is 39%, and humanoids are projected to grow at a 50% CAGR to 2028. There has been no public announcement of a large contract with Tesla or Figure AI, only breadcrumbs from announcement timing and investor-call references, so the humanoid story could prove hyperbole. x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group makes the foil strain gauges that give humanoid robot wrists their sense of touch, and once qualified into a robot or flight design they are hard to swap out. Orders outrun shipments: book-to-bill was 1.14, a seventh straight quarter above 1.0, with a $136M backlog, and Q2 revenue grew 12% at a 39% gross margin with net cash. At 43.6x forward earnings, part of the story is priced in. It fails if the humanoid vendor nomination never becomes a production order. x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group's humanoid robot business is becoming real: its first humanoid customer formally named it production supplier for force and torque sensing after over two years of qualification. That customer plans to ramp from tens of robots a week to thousands by year-end. Q2 bookings were $95.5 million at a 1.14 book-to-bill, with a record 1.44 in sensors. Under $1 billion market cap and about 2.5x forward EV/sales compares with Unitree's IPO at 36x sales. Revenue is a 2027 question. … Show more
Actuator and bearing makers are the best way to play robotics, since actuators are over 50% of a robot's bill of materials and Morgan Stanley expects 300x growth through 2050. The humanoid opportunity is massive for RBC Bearings next to the ~$50M it makes there today; Regal Rexnord expects humanoids to take off quickly and trades far cheaper; Harmonic Drive dominates strain-wave gears. Novanta, with robotics bookings up 50%, and Vishay Precision, likely in Tesla's Optimus, win indirectly. x.com … Show more
Robotics component suppliers get paid on every robot no matter which maker wins, as capital floods into the sector. Robotics VC hit a record of over $16 billion in a quarter, and Goldman sees the humanoid market growing from under $2 billion to $38 billion by 2035, with the inflection around 2027-28. Nvidia supplies the compute and training platforms, Ambarella edge AI chips, Ouster lidar, Vishay Precision force sensors, and memory makers the memory every robot needs. x.com x.comÂ
Vishay Precision Group's DTS unit just won 2026 Supplier of the Year for its crash-testing technology, more evidence the company is positioned to scale on all fronts. That precision measurement category overlaps with humanoid robotics testing, and VPG has 50+ years of IP compounding across three segments: sensors, weighing solutions and measurement systems, all growing year over year. x.comÂ
VPG and Ouster gain a second demand channel as cars become robots on wheels: ADAS uses the same perception stack of cameras, lidar, radar and depth sensors as humanoids. VPG's strain gauges have been in automotive sensors for decades, a floor under its humanoid upside, making it the anchor, while Ouster adds lidar volume as OEM programs scale. With auto and humanoid exposure, forward earnings at 30-35x imply 3-5x over three to five years. x.comÂ
US humanoid-robot parts makers look set to be repriced because the US has no listed pure-play humanoid company while China races ahead and Washington moves to restrict foreign robots, as with solar and photonics. China's Unitree listed at $9 billion, 8,000 times oversubscribed. CCXI, the Agility Robotics merger vehicle, has $300M+ booked; Vishay Precision makes force sensing; Ouster makes lidar; Ambarella makes edge vision chips. The robot war will have few winners, but parts sell to all. x.comÂ
