Taobao, Alibaba's online consumer auction firm and the largest online retailer in Asia, is expected to see its transaction volume surpass 100 billion yuan ($13.3 billion) this year, according to a report it issued on Thursday.

The report says that the volume of transactions on the auction site Taobao hit 18.8 billion yuan in the first three months, an increase of 170 percent over that of the last year. "If the same pace is kept up, the yearly transaction volume will surpass 100 billion yuan."

Experts attribute the sharp increase to complex reasons including the RMB appreciation and the wave of more enterprises choosing Internet as their trade platforms.

Nearly 10,000 brand-named enterprises have opened online outlets at Taobao including P&G, Motorola, and the Lenovo.

Alibaba, founded in 1999 by Jack Ma in the country's eastern Hangzhou city, saw its share rise 122 percent on its trading debut in Hong Kong last November.

It dominates the business-to-business section in China, and its unlisted consumer subsidiary includes Taobao, as well as online payments unit Alipay and Yahoo! China.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2008)