Beijing-based internet technology firm ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Douyin, has formed a new business unit dedicated to e-commerce on the heels of this year’s 618 shopping festival. The short-video giant is betting on the growth of the livestreaming e-commerce space in China.

An anonymous insider source told local publication LatePost, “Douyin e-commerce is still doing research on the strategy of live e-commerce. The visible head anchor echelon has not yet been cultivated, and it still understands the matching of users, KOLs, and goods.”

According to the report, Kang Zeyu, the former head of the company’s overseas products like news app TopBuzz and social app Helo, will lead the e-commerce unit, for which the company has set a gross merchandise volume target of 200 billion yuan (US$28.3 billion) for 2020.

Chinese shoppers’ adoption of livestreaming has put its sales potential into the spotlight. Traditional e-commerce giants like Alibaba and ​JD.com​ are entering the segment beside platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou.

According to the consulting company Deloitte, the livestreaming market in China reached $4.4 billion in 2018, growing 37 percent on the year previous and attracting a total of 456 million viewers.