Tech giant Google has dethroned Apple to be the world's most valuable brand with a brand value of more than $109.5 billion, according to Brand Finance's Global 500 list. The iPhone-making company, which has been the world's most valuable brand for last five years, registered a 27 percent drop in value at $107.1 billion over 2016. Jeff Bezos' e-commerce major Amazon followed Apple on the list grabbing the third rank.

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According to the annual report on the world's most valuable brands, Google remains unchallenged in its core search business, its primary source of advertising income. Its ad revenues were up 20 percent last year. Also, the desktop ad is comparatively more lucrative than mobile ads.

Amazon, in third place coming behind Google and Apple, has a brand value of 53 percent. The company, growing strongly while it continues to both reshape the retail market and capture a larger share of it, launched its grocery service recently called Amazon Fresh which is still limited in scale but this year, expanded operations overseas for the first time, reports IBTimes, to central and east London. Amazon said it would create 100,000 jobs in the US over the next 18 months.

The companies AT&T, Microsoft and Samsung are in fourth, fifth and sixth positions with brand values of $87,016m, $7,265m and $66,219m respectively. Among other companies that made the top 10 list are Verizon, Walmart, Facebook and ICBC.

Social media giant Facebook continues to rank higher following an 82% brand value growth. However, it has been outdone by China's biggest tech brands such as Alibaba, WeChat and Tencent which have grown by 94, 103 and 124 percent respectively.

David Haigh, the CEO of Brand Finance, told in a statement to the Telegraph that there are probably 50 or 60 analysts that follow Apple some of whom are very bullish and some are very pessimistic. "What drives our valuation is consensus. We are reflecting what the market says and the market consensus is that the prospects of future turnover are worse than they were last year or the year before," said Haigh.