Apple is set to be the second largest provider of paid-for on-demand movies in the USA by the end of this year, according to a report in The Financial Times.

The FT cited media research company Screen Digest to point out that Apple’s iTunes store, which sells movie downloads to buy or rent, will exceed the video-on-demand operations of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the USA’s biggest cable TV operators.

In fact, Screen Digest predicted that more people will buy or rent movies from iTunes than Time Warner Cable’s video-on-demand service by the end of the year, generating $280 million (around £184.4m) from 35m transactions against Time Warner Cable’s $160m from 31m.

It went on to predict that iTunes downloads would surpass those of Comcast by 2014.

Entertainment website Digital Spy suggested that the success of its iTunes download service might encourage Apple to develop its Apple TV service, which currently allows users to download content from iTunes and other online sites to watch on their TV screens.