The survey was conducted by Interbrand among more than 2,500 people from 99 countries. It asked respondents which brand they felt had had the most impact on them that year, whether good or bad.
Google, which went public in the summer of 2004, picked up more than 45% of votes, knocking Apple off the top global spot. However, Apple did manage to beat Google into second place in local surveys of the US and Canada, riding on the success of new products including the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano and iPod Video.
Sony, which came in last place in the global poll, held the number-one position in Asia Pacific -- the fourth time in the five years it has been running that it has been most popular. Toyota was in second place.
In Central and Latin America, drinks brands dominated the votes with Corona in first place, chased closely by Bacardi. Movistar, a mobile phone operator from Spanish firm Telefonica, came in third place.
In third place in the global results came internet telephony company Skype, which made it to the top five for the first time this year. This was followed by Starbucks in fourth place and Ikea in fifth place, falling one place from last year's survey.
Skype also came eighth in a separate survey of the fastest growing brands in 2005, after recording 296% growth between December 2004 and December 2005, according to new research by Nielsen//NetRatings.
In first place came photo website builder and community site Piczo, which was the most successful brand in the UK in 2005 in terms of audience growth with a 9,669% growth growing from just 12,500 visitors to over 1.2m a year later.
In second place was greeting cards company AmericanGreetings, which saw a growth of 2,152%.
This was followed by shopping guide and directory Shopzilla, toolbar and search software Starware, digital music distributor OD2, file sharing software Limewire, communal encyclopaedia Wikipedia, with children's games and chat website Nickelodeon at number nine and blog host Blogger in 10th place.
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