Telecom Asia magazine announced today that Telstra Corp., Softbank Mobile, and SingTel are among the finalists competing for Asia’s leading telecom industry honors.

The 11th Telecom Asia Awards honors will be presented next Tuesday, April 8. The shortlist of nominees, which were released ahead of the presentation, covers ten categories, from mobile to managed services to new technology.

Telstra has been shortlisted in three categories – Best Mobile, Best Broadband and CEO of the Year – while Softbank and SingTel both picked up nominations for the mobile and CEO honors.

Malaysia’s DiGi and KTF from Korea are also up for final selection in the hotly-contested mobile category.

Bill Barney of Pacnet is the fourth finalist for CEO of the Year, competing against Softbank’s Masayhoshi Son, SingTel’s Allen Lew, and Telstra’s Sol Trujillo.

In a new category, Telecom Innovation of the Year, six ground-breaking products won through to the final.

The Best Asian Telecom Carrier will be chosen from among the winners of all the carrier categories.

Joseph Waring, Group Editor of Telecom Asia, said: “These awards are intended to recognize outstanding achievement by Asian telecom service providers. The addition of a new category for innovation highlights the pressure on carriers to develop fresh product segments and services to gain competitive advantage.”

The awards are chosen by an independent panel of industry experts, making their selections based on financial performance, technology, market leadership, and corporate governance.

The judging panel is supported by analysis from the global IT telecom and software research firm Ovum.

Last year’s biggest winner was SK Telecom, which took out the overall prize for Best Asian Telecom Carrier as well as Best Mobile Carrier. Allen Lew, chief of SingTel Singapore, won the CEO prize and Indian telco Bharti Airtel was voted Best Emerging Market Carrier.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony at Indigo Pearl, Phuket, Thailand, held in conjunction with the Asia-Pacific Executive Forum, which is being organized by Intec.

About Telecom Asia

Telecom Asia is Asia’s largest regional telecom publishing group. It publishes the magazines Telecom Asia, Wireless Asia, and Charged and the Website www.telecomasia.net, aimed at telecommunications professionals around the region. Combined, these titles serve more than 100,000 subscribers.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.telecomasia.net

About Ovum

Ovum’s primary activity is providing value-added advisory services and consulting to retain and project clients. The company acts as a well-respected and trusted source of industry data, knowledge and expertise on the commercial impact of technology, and regulatory and market changes. Ovum engages in continuous research and industry analysis to determine market dynamics in its specialist sectors.

Ovum has developed long-standing relationships with many of its corporate clients, which include major international blue-chip companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, Cisco Systems, Deutsche Telekom, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Telstra, and Vodafone.

Ovum is part of the Datamonitor Group.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.ovum.com/

Websites: http://www.telecomasia.net
http://www.ovum.com