James Sullivan & team J.P. Morgan

J.P. Morgan finishes in second place for a second year in a row. The seven-member crew, which is led by James Sullivan in Singapore, covers 34 companies and plans to add more names this year. “The global and Asian telecommunications sectors are going through a critical transition period as data becomes the primary driver of revenue,” Sullivan says. Therefore, the analysts have been steering clients away from pure-play wireless operators and toward those that offer multiple services. The team has maintained an overweight rating since January 2011 on Thailand’s Total Access Communication owing to strong earnings growth, among other factors. The stock skyrocketed 95.2 percent and trounced the sector by 86.1 percentage points, through March 2012. Another winner: China Unicom, on its rising market share; over the same period the stock surged 19 percent and beat the sector by nearly 10 percentage points. Sullivan, who also oversees a team in the runner-up position for its coverage of Singapore, produces “differentiated franchise reports on economics of wireless data that arouse big traction among investors and telcos management,” reports one buy-sider. — Pam Baker