Reliance Industries on Wednesday replaced ONGC as the country's most valued company in terms of market capitalisation, as investors rallied behind the shares of the Mukesh Ambani-led firm.

At 1437 hours, RIL commanded a market value of Rs 2,44,232 crore (Rs 2442.32 billion) -- higher than ONGC's Rs 2,40,922 crore (Rs 2,409.22 billion) which slipped to second place in the list of market valuation chart.

While RIL shares were trading 0.4 per cent higher in a lackluster market, ONGC shares fell by 1.47 per cent.

On Tuesday, state-owned

energy major ONGC had surpassed software giant TCS to become country's most valued company.

TCS, with an m-cap of Rs 2,40,346 crore (Rs 2,403.46 billion) was at third spot, followed by CIL (Rs 2,18,862 crore or Rs 2,188.62 billion) and ITC (Rs 2,01,715 crore or Rs 2,017.15 billion).

On May 2, TCS replaced Reliance Industries as the country's most valued company.

Way back in 2006, RIL had toppled ONGC to emerge as the country's most valued firm and has largely managed to stay on the top since then, except for a few brief periods in the last few months.

A company's market capitalisation is determined by multiplying its share price with total number of shares.