Shanghai. April 23. INTERFAX-CHINA - Although incentives offered by the Chinese government are fueling the growth of digital TV in China, the future for pay TV, high-definition TV (HDTV) and TV-related value-added services via the medium remains uncertain, according to a research report issued on April 22.

The government-mandated switchover to digital TV by 2015 will continue to fuel the growth of the medium in China, with the total number of digital TV users expected to reach 236 million in 10 years from now, market research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) said in a report published on April 22.

With investments made in digital infrastructure subsidized by the government, cable TV operators have turned their focus from digital TV switchover towards searching for profitable business models to explore the markets in pay TV, HDTV and value-added services, according to MPA.

However, the future for pay TV, HDTV and value-added services remain uncertain as current networks can only support limited interactive digital TV features, while there are also challenges from Internet content providers and piracy, according to MPA analyst Adrian Tong.

MPA predicted that the number of users of digital pay TV and HDTV will reach 50 million and 18 million respectively by 2018. Revenues from digital TV-related value-added services, including video-on-demand (VOD), pay per view (PPV) and personal video recorder (PVR) services, will reach RMB 6.84 billion ($1 billion) by 2018, the report predicted.