Flipkart among MIT Technology Review's 50 smartest companies globally

The recognition comes at a time when the India's largest e-commerce firm turns 10 years old

India's largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart's resilience against an onslaught from global rival Amazon has earned it a spot on MIT Technology Review's list of '50 Smartest Companies' for the year 2017.

Flipkart is ranked 36th on MIT Technology Review's list, which includes the usual suspects like Alphabet, SpaceX, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. The recognition comes as the Indian firm turns 10-years old.

"Amazon's aggressive investments in India have upended the country's e-commerce industry, but Flipkart-India's largest online marketplace-keeps battling back," MIT Technology Review says on its website. "To further boost its competitiveness, Flipkart is expanding its private-label product lines and hiring AI experts to improve product search and recommendations on its website."

While Flipkart featured onto MIT Technology Review's list, Amazon, the Indian firm's biggest rival almost topped it. The US online retailer was beaten only by NVIDIA and Elon Musk's SpaceX in the standings for the world's smartest company.

Amazon received accolades for helping reinvent shopping with the use of various technologies such as computer vision and natural language processing. However, MIT Technology Review also noted the company's innovativeness for streamlining brick-and-mortar retail with its Amazon Go initiative.

Flipkart noted that over the years it has made several India-first innovations that have helped bring e-commerce to the masses. Among those, its progressive web app, which helps customers with slow mobile internet connections and limited storage on their smartphones use its service.

"This is fantastic recognition of Flipkart's tech leadership position and the progress we've made towards our mission, which is to transform commerce in India through technology. In the past decade, Flipkart has pioneered India-specific innovations, which have not only led to the adoption and rise of e-commerce in India but have also become standard global tech solutions," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, in a statement.