Leading e-commerce website 360buy.com said on Wednesday that the company's revenue from its online pharmacy business is approaching 100 million yuan ($15.80 million) and is expected to quickly develop in the near future.

Cui Wei, CEO of www.ehaoyao.com, the company's e-pharmacy unit, said there is great potential in selling medicine and health products online in the Chinese market. The website which exists for less than a year has seen a strong growth rate in sales.

The number of average daily unique visitors to the website is over 100,000, Cui said. The website's monthly sales growth rate is about 20 percent.

"By the end of the year, ehaoyao.com will have a business scale similar to 150 mid-sized chain drugstores," Cui said in an interview with China Daily.

China started to sell drugs online in 2005. After seven years of development, the ratio of the online pharmacies transaction amount over that of the total retail pharmacies in China is less than 1 percent, while the figure in the United States is about 30 percent, Cui said.

"As more people go on the Internet for shopping, China will see a golden age of developing its online pharmacy industry," Cui said.

shenjingting@chinadaily.com.cn