TUDOU.COM, China’s answer to YouTube, aims to achieve next year what the U.S. video-sharing Web site owned by Google Inc. has failed to do — post a profit.

    “We are projecting a sales surge early next year, so I hope that will happen by then,” Garry Wang, chief executive officer of the company, said yesterday. “There hasn’t been an Internet application in the last five years that could attract users like video can.’’

    Three of every four Internet users in China watch videos online, luring companies including Adidas AG, Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. to buy advertisements on Tudou’s site. Tudou, meaning “potato” in Chinese, is the leader in an Internet market that has more users than the combined populations of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

    “The interactive experience of video-sharing sites gives this market room for a lot of growth in the next five to 10 years,” said Liu Bin, an Internet analyst with research company BDA China Ltd. “In the next few years, advertising spending for these sites will rise quickly.”

    China was home to 210 million Internet users at the end of 2007, according to the China Network Information Center. About 77 percent of Web users watched online videos last year, more than doubling from 2006, said the government agency.

    Tudou’s closest rival is Youku.com followed by 56.com, which are both Chinese-language sites, according to BDA’s Liu.

    “Interest in the Chinese video-sharing sites has really increased,” said Elias Glenn, a Shanghai-based analyst at JL McGregor & Co., a consultant to venture-capital firms and institutional investors in China. “I’d definitely say Tudou is China’s YouTube. They’re the one everyone’s talking about.”(SD-Agencies)