Jack Ma, chairman of China's largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, attends a corporate event at the company's headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in this file picture taken April 23, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]?

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has overtaken Microsoft Corp to rank the first this year in the Top 50 Best Employers for College Students, according to an annual survey done by China's leading research organization Horizon Research Consultancy Group.

According to the survey released on Wednesday, the 2014 top 10 employers for college students are Alibaba, China Mobile Ltd, Bank of China, Apple Inc, China Telecom, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Baidu Inc, China National Petroleum Corp, Tencent Holdings Ltd and State Grid.

The survey was conducted via questionnaires to students in 20 colleges in seven cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan in Shandong province, Chengdu in Sichuan province, Wuhan in Hubei province, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and Nanjing in Jiangsu province.