BEIJING--PPS.tv, a Chinese online video service provider, aims to break even by the year-end, boosted by demand for Olympic-related content, and predicts a profitable 2009, its president said.

Because of the huge sums poured into network infrastructure to ensure smooth viewing, few web video firms in the world that rely on advertising for their revenue are profitable yet, including the pioneer, YouTube, a unit of Google Inc.

Three-year-old PPS.tv, which delivers video to customers through client-end software or via a video-on-demand application on its website, expects to see its revenues quadruple to over $6 million this year from $1.5 million in 2007.

"Our company has been a beneficiary of the rapid growth of Chinese Internet users and online video watchers," said Vincent Xu, company president. "The overall web video watcher base has been growing very quickly."

The website, popular among college students who have no access to television, is slated to make money for the whole of 2009 and might reach the monthly break-even point as early as this October or November, Xu told Reuters.

With 10 million average daily independent users, Shanghai-based PPS.tv has been used by 45 percent of online video watchers in China, he said.

"Revenues for 2009 will easily reach the tens of millions of dollars, which would put the company in the black," said Xu, a Taiwan native.

China overtook the United States this year as the world's largest Internet population. At end-June, it had 253 million Web users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

Chinese authorities in March ordered 25 video-sharing websites to halt operations and issued warnings to dozens of others, in a bid to tighten their grip on online content.

PPS.tv stays away from potential regulatory risks by buying all its content from well-established TV stations, Xu said. It recently signed agreements with state-owned China Central Television to buy Olympic content.

Advertisements linked to Olympic-related programs will account for about 30 percent of total sales this year at PPS.tv, which relies completely on ad revenue, Xu said.

PPS.tv, which has received an $11 million investment from two private-equity firms, Ceyuan Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners, has no plans for pre-IPO funding, said Xu.

"We are set to make profits from next year. So we're not considering going public until 2010," he said.

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