HANGZHOU - Taobao, a major online shopping website run by Alibaba, foresees an explosive growth of live-streaming sales.

Wen Zhong, senior director of Taobao content ecology, said Saturday that with three years of growth, Taobao Live has become a "standard configuration" rather than an "optional choice" for e-commerce shops doing business on Taobao.

Taobao Live reached a turnover of 100 billion yuan ($14.93 billion) in 2018, with an annual growth rate of 400 percent. More than 600,000 varieties of commodities are sold via the platform.

Taobao Live has empowered farmers, business owners and self-employed entrepreneurs to promote their specialties virtually face-to-face with interested buyers.

In 2019, Taobao is expected to see 200 Taobao online shops use live-streaming sales to realize yearly transactions of more than 100 million yuan each.

With the application of new technology including 5G, virtual reality and augmented reality, live-streaming sales would bring a more diversified interaction between online sellers and shoppers and generate more profits, said Wen.