(Yicai) March 29 -- Taobao, the Chinese e-commerce site under Alibaba Group Holding, plans to invest an additional CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) in content commerce, with a special focus on livestreaming, in the upcoming fiscal year starting on April 1.

Of the CNY10 billion, over CNY4 billion (USD553.4 million) will be used to further promote livestreaming e-commerce, and CNY3 billion will go for the construction of an ecosystem for online stores’ livestreaming business, Cheng Daofang, general manager at the content commerce division of Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall Group, said at the 2024 Taobao Content E-Commerce Grand Ceremony yesterday.

Alibaba is increasing its investment in Taobao Live, as revitalizing the Taobao and Tmall Group became its highest-priority task. This will also lead to more pressure on its livestreaming e-commerce business to improve its performance.

Taobao aims to increase the annual gross merchandise volume and user scale of its livestreaming business by 80 percent and 100 percent, respectively, and double the number of its livestreaming hosts with a monthly transaction volume of over CNY1 million (USD138,360) in the new fiscal year, Cheng noted.

Taobao Live's users rose 44 percent in the fiscal year ending March 31 from the year before, according to data released at the event. The platform had 12,000 livestreaming hosts with a monthly transaction volume of over CNY1 million.

Besides allocating more funds to support existing livestreaming hosts, Taobao will also provide up to one thousand assistants to new livestreaming hosts to help them improve sales, and nurture more qualified hosts for Taobao Live.

Moreover, Taobao Live will give subsidies to merchants hosting livestreamings with high sales revenue, as they usually offer big discounts during the events, Cheng pointed out. Online stores' self-hosted livestreaming events contributed 64 percent to the total GMV of Taobao Live last year.

The turnover of China's livestreaming e-commerce totaled CNY4.9 trillion (USD678 billion) last year, up 35 percent from the year before, according to the 2023 China Live E-Commerce Industry Research Report by iiMedia Research. This year, the competition is expected to intensify.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione