Tokyo, June 20 (PTI): Japan's telecom carrier SoftBank paid vice-president and ex-Google executive Nikesh Arora a whopping $135 million in the year to March, reports said Saturday.

The amount included a one-time, sign-on bonus for the Indian-born 47-year-old, according to the Nikkei business daily and the Asahi Shimbun.

Arora gave up his high-profile post at the Internet search giant to join the Japanese firm in October last year.

SoftBank's official filing showed it paid 16.556 billion yen ($135 million) to Arora, who has been repeatedly showered with praise by the company's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son, according to local reports.

Of the total, 14.6 billion yen was paid as an entering bonus and compensation for his work as an executive at a SoftBank subsidiary, the Asahi Shimbun reported today, citing SoftBank's latest financial report.

Arora was named the president and chief operating officer of the company at its shareholders' meeting on Friday.

"In order for us to become a SoftBank that is competitive in the global market place, we had to strengthen our management team," Son told his shareholders.

"Fortunately, Nikesh Arora joined the SoftBank group. He is the top candidate to be my successor.

"He and I will team up to further expand our company," Son said.

In a management reshuffle last month, Arora - then investments head - was named as a potential successor to chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son, as the telecom conglomerate steps up its overseas expansion.

He was previously chief business officer of Google Inc, which he entered in 2004 as a telecom industry analyst.

Unlike elsewhere in the world, there are few business executives in Japan who are paid several billions of yen a year and rare for a Japanese company to pay more than 16 billion yen annually to an executive, it said.

In less than a year at SoftBank, Arora has already directed about 200 billion yen ($1.67 billion) worth of deals that include investments in Snapdeal and Ola Cabs.