Chinese mobile handset major Xiaomi has replaced Samsung at the top position in the country's urban market.
The Beijing-headquartered company, which entered India three years ago, has managed to garner a higher market share in the top 50 cities during the September quarter. Samsung, which had been dominating the space for over four years, lost out to Xiaomi as it held 24.1 per cent of the urban market, compared with Xiaomi's 26.5 per cent, IDC indicated.
As per a report by International Data Corporation (IDC), Xiaomi held the maximum market share in the top 50 Indian cities in the Q3 2017 period, followed by Samsung, Lenovo (including Moto), Oppo, and Vivo.
The top 50 Indian cities have accounted for 50 percent of overall smartphone sales in the country in the third quarter this year.
IDC in its India Monthly City-Level Smartphone Tracker claims that in the top 50 cities, Xiaomi ousted Samsung to take 26.5 percent of the market.
It is said to have registered 120 percent growth in the period, while the Redmi Note 4 contributed to 40 percent of its volumes - becoming the highest selling smartphones across the cities.
Samsung, which moved to the second slot with 24.1 percent market share, saw 15 percent quarterly growth. IDC says the brand continues to dominate in several cities thanks to its "deep penetration and reach."
The Samsung Galaxy J2, Galaxy J7 Max, and Galaxy J7 Nxt made up 50 percent of volumes of the South Korean manufacture.
Lenovo (including the Moto brand) had the third spot with a 10.3 percent share, and grew 8 percent from the previous quarter.
Oppo moved up to the fourth position with a 5.2 percent share, with the Oppo F3, F3 Plus, and A71 smartphones major contributors to the growth the company enjoyed.
Finally, Vivo slipped to the fifth spot at 5.1 percent, and is said to have seen a marginal decline in sales from the last quarter.

The India Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch first solar mission Aditya-L1 in 2019. It will be India's first dedicated scientific mission to study sun.
The mission aims to put 1,500-kg heavy class Aditya-L1 satellite into halo orbit around Lagrangian point L1, a point between Sun and Earth. This point is at a distance of about 1.5 million km from earth.
The project is approved and the satellite will be launched during 2019 - 2020 timeframe by PSLV-XL from Sriharikota.
Aditya-1 was meant to observe only the solar corona.
The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the corona. It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc temperature of around 6000K.
How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics.
Aditya-L1 with additional experiments can now provide observations of Sun's Photosphere (soft and hard X-ray), Chromosphere (UV) and corona (Visible and NIR).
In addition, particle payloads will study the particle flux emanating from the Sun and reaching the L1 orbit, and the magnetometer payload will measure the variation in magnetic field strength at the halo orbit around L1.
These payloads have to be placed outside the interference from the Earth's magnetic field and could not have been useful in the low earth orbit.
The main payload continues to be the coronagraph with improved capabilities. The main optics for this experiment remains the same.
Aditya-L1: Know More
The Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and was planned to launch in an 800 km low earth orbit.
A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/ eclipses.
Therefore, the Aditya-1 mission has now been revised to "Aditya-L1 mission" and will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth. The satellite carries additional six payloads with enhanced science scope and objectives.

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC) in US have converted natural bacterial immune system into the world's smallest data recorder.
The researchers modified an ordinary laboratory strain of ubiquitous human gut microbe (bacteria) Escherichia coli (E Coli) which enabled it to record their interactions with environment and also time-stamp events.
Such bacteria, swallowed by a patient, might be able to record the changes they experience through the whole digestive tract, yielding an unprecedented view of previously inaccessible phenomena.
Other applications could include environmental sensing and basic studies in ecology and microbiology, where bacteria could monitor otherwise invisible changes without disrupting their surroundings.
CRISPR-Cas, an immune system is found in many species of bacteria.
CRISPR-Cas copies snippets of DNA from invading viruses so that subsequent generations of bacteria can repel these pathogens more effectively.
As a result, the CRISPR locus of the bacterial genome accumulates a chronological record of the bacterial viruses that it and its ancestors have survived. When those same viruses try to infect again, the CRISPR-Cas system can recognise and eliminate them. To build their microscopic recorder, the researchers modified a piece of DNA called a plasmid, giving it the ability to create more copies of itself in the bacterial cell in response to an external signal.

The world's fastest supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was successfully test fired from Indian Air Force's (IAF) Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jet for the first time. The missile was gravity dropped from Su-30MKI from its fuselage and two-stage missile's engine fired up and was propelled towards the intended target in Bay of Bengal. BrahMos Missile: Know More The 2.5-ton BrahMos-ALCM (air-launched cruise missile) "can also easily go over 400-km", like its 2.9-ton land and ship-launched variants already inducted into the armed forces. The BrahMos missile combined with the Sukhoi-30MKI fighter, which has a cruising range of 3,200-km or a combat radius of about 1,500-km without mid-air refuelling, constitutes a decidedly deadly weapons package. The conventional (non-nuclear) weapon, for instance, can target Chinese aircraft carriers and other warships, or block Pakistan's Gwadar port by sinking a few ships in the harbour for that matter. The world-class BrahMos is now capable of being launched from the land, sea and air, completing the tactical cruise missile triad for India. The missile's capability coupled with the Sukhoi-30Mki's superlative performance gives IAF a strategic reach and allows it to dominate the ocean and the battle-fields. It has already placed orders worth INR 6,516 crore for the BrahMos-ALCM, which takes the total orders for the missiles to INR 27,150 crore from the three Services till now. BrahMos committed to continue providing the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile to the Army, Navy and IAF.