With its value amounting to $153 billion, Apple is now the world’s valuable brand. Leaving behind Google - the leading Internet search engine - to second spot, Apple now costs double of its capitalization, says the yearly BrandZ study of the world’s top 100 brands.

According to a new study spearheaded by the global brabds agency Millard Brown, the iPhone and iPad maker has recently ended the four-year-reign of Google as the topmost brand worldwide.

Last year, Apple's selection of in demand consumer goods propelled it past Microsoft to become the world's most valuable technology corporation.

Global brands director of Millward Brown, Peter Walshe, says “Apple's meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers”

"Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model," he told Reuters by telephone. "It's doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire," Walshe added.

Six technology and telecommunications companies comprised the top 10 brands in Monday's report. The ranking came in with Google placed second, IBM at number three, Microsoft at number five, AT&T at number seven and China Mobile at number nine.

With fast food becoming the fastest-growing category, McDonald's raised two places to number four. Coca-Cola was down one step to number six as Marlboro was also down one to number eight. General Electric was solo in the tenth spot.

"The Chinese have been discovering fast food and it's such a vast market -- Starbucks, McDonald's... and pizza has hit China," Walshe said. The demand of most Chinese for fast food products opened opportunity for the rise of fast food brands.

With its brand valued at $19.1 billion, Facebook entered the top 100 at number 35. The famed Chinese search engine, Baidu, rose to number 29 from 46.

Toyota is once again the world's most valuable car brand, as it recovered from a botched 2010 product recall.