China IPO data provider iResearch confirms executives ‘are assisting authorities’ with enquiries

iResearch, a market research company which provided industry data for Chinese tech giants Xiaomi and Meituan Dianping in their IPO filings, confirmed on its Weibo corporate account that some of its senior executives “are assisting authorities with an investigation and therefore cannot be contacted”.

iResearch did not name the executives detained by the Chinese authorities or say what the investigation was about. The firm said in their statement that operations are running normally and that the company is “a responsible firm”. A spokeswoman declined to comment further on the issue when reached by phone on Thursday.

Founded by Henry Yang in 2002 and with headquarters in Beijing and Shanghai, iResearch is a leading provider of online audience measurement and consumer insights in China, according to information on its website. It helps clients to “harness the power of the internet” with data products, analytics and consulting services.

Recently-listed smartphone maker Xiaomi, on-demand services giant Meituan Dianping, and China’s Netflix-like video streaming platform iQiyi all commissioned iResearch to provide market data for their IPO prospectuses. According to information on its website, iResearch says it has produced thousands of industry reports and it's the “go-to data consultancy for internet companies when they are going for IPO”.

Yang, 42 years’ old, also co-founded an entertainment industry research firm called Entgroup that provides data on movie box office attendance and online viewing numbers.

Nasdaq-listed iQiyi, China’s leading video streaming platform, announced earlier this month that it was removing total viewer numbers for its videos.

“The decision allows the company to focus on providing higher quality, more creative content and improving the user experience, a distinction the company hopes will be followed by others in the industry,” iQiyi said in a statement.