Brands are ranked and valued in dollars for the study, with the top 100 names now worth collectively more than $2 trillion.

Millward Brown Optimor said that it carried out interviews with more than one million consumers around the world to gauge their perception of a brand before giving it a dollar value.

Joanna Seddon, CEO at Millward Brown Optimor (pictured), said: “In the past, many companies were quick to cut their marketing spend during a down economy. A new trend has emerged in the wake of the recession as more companies realised the importance of maintaining and even increasing budgets to support brand loyalty and engagement.”

There were no new entrants to the list of top ten brands in 2009, although there were several changes to the order ( 2008 position in brackets):

1. ( 1 ) Google – 114,260
2. ( 4 ) IBM – 86,383
3. ( 6 ) Apple – 83,153
4. ( 2 ) Microsoft – 76,344
5. ( 3 ) Coca-Cola – 67,983
6. ( 5 ) McDonalds – 66,005
7. ( 10 ) Marlboro – 57,047
8. ( 7 ) China Mobile – 52,616
9. ( 8 ) GE – 45,054
10. ( 9 ) Vodafone – 44,404