HANGZHOU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- 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 (about 14.93 billion U.S. dollars) 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.