KUALA LUMPUR, May 18, 2016 – HKT was the big winner with three awards at Telecom Asia’s 19th annual awards ceremony, scooping up the top prize for Best Asian Telecoms Carrier, as well as Best Broadband Carrier and Best OTT Video Service.
Malaysian operator Maxis also had a great night, winning the Best Emerging Market Operator award, while Morten Lundal was named Telecom CEO of the Year.
Telstra also collected two trophies, winning Best Mobile Carrier for the fifth straight year and Most Innovative Approach to Analytics. Meanwhile, Singtel took two awards for Most Innovative Partnership Strategy (via its tie-up with GrabTaxi) and Most Innovative Video Service (for its work in developing augmented and virtual reality apps for TV advertising).
HKT – which had five nominations across several business groups this year –earned the most points from the judging panel to win the Best Asia Telecoms Carrier award, based in part on its strong innovation in a hypercompetitive market and its successful integration of CSL, Hong Kong’s largest mobile operator. HKT also won the Best Broadband Carrier award for the second straight year.
PCCW Media won TA’s first-ever OTT Video Service award for its Viu service, which has launched in several markets and turned the heads of analysts who see it as a striking example of how an incumbent telco with a pay-TV service can play in the OTT video space on its own terms.
This year’s second debut category – Best MVNO – went to Malaysia’s Tune Talk. Our third new category – Most Innovative Approach to Mobile Security – went to Smart Communications’ LockByMobile. The award for Best Mobile Payments Service went to Telkomsel for T-Cash.
NTT Communications continued its winning streak in the cloud space, claiming the Best Cloud-Based Service award for the fourth straight year. Global Cloud XChange was named Best Managed Services Provider. BT Global Services won this year’s Best International Wholesale Carrier prize, and Equinix took home the award for Best Data Center Services Provider.
Chunghwa Telecom won the Most Innovative Telecom Project category for its pioneering deployment of G.fast. Indosat Ooredoo won the award for Most Innovative Approach to Customer Experience for its 4Gplus Mobile Agent scheme. And Cambodia’s Smart Axiata won the Best Community Telecom Project award for its nationwide literacy campaign.
A total of 19 awards were presented to 14 winners at a gala dinner in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday night. The awards were held in conjunction with Telecom Asia’s 7th Telco Strategies conference.
Now in its 19th year, the Telecom Asia Awards are the region’s longest-running and most prestigious telecom industry awards. They reward innovative and outstanding performance by Asian service providers and industry executives.
The Telecom Asia Awards selection is made by an independent panel of industry experts who cast votes on the basis of innovation, financial performance, technology, market leadership and corporate governance.
The judging is conducted over two rounds, and the methodology varies slightly between segments. In the first round, the 12 judges nominate their best performers in all categories – except for International Wholesale, Managed Services Provider and Data Center Provider, where the candidates are asked to submit nominations, and Best Asian Telecom Carrier, which is awarded to the company with the most top-place rankings and overall number of votes from the judges.
Readers were also invited to submit nominations online for nine of the 19 categories.
In the second round, the judges cast their votes on the shortlist of finalists, which is determined by Telecom Asia editors based on all the nominations from both the judging panel and self-nominations in a number of categories.
The nomination process starts in January and voting is finalized in April.
2016 TELECOM ASIA AWARDS WINNERS
1. Best Asian Telecoms Carrier: HKT
2. Telecom CEO of the Year: Morten Lundal, Maxis
3. Best Mobile Carrier: Telstra
4. Best Broadband Carrier: HKT
5. Best Emerging Market Operator: Maxis
6. Best MVNO: Tune Talk
7. Best Cloud-Based Service: NTT Communications
8. Best Mobile Payments Service: Telkomsel
9. Most Innovative Approach to Mobile Security: Smart Communications, LockByMobile
10. Most Innovative Partnership Strategy: Singtel, GrabTaxi
11. Most Innovative Approach to Customer Experience: Indosat Ooredoo
12. Most Innovative Approach to Analytics: Telstra
13. Most Innovative Video Service: Singtel
14. Best Community Telecom Project: Smart Axiata
15. Most Innovative Telecom Project: Chunghwa Telecom
16. Best OTT Video Service: PCCW Media (Viu)
17. Best Data Center Services Provider: Equinix
18. Best International Wholesale Carrier: BT Global Services
19. Best Managed Services Provider: Global Cloud XChange
About Telecom Asia
Telecom Asia is Asia's largest regional telecom publishing group. Its products include Telecom Asia magazine, www.telecomasia.net and a range of industry-specific supplements aimed at telecommunications professionals around the region.
For further information:
Stefan Hammond
Managing Editor, Telecom Asia
Email: shammond@questexasia.com