UBS analyst Brent Thill reiterated a Buy rating on Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) and raised his price target to $73 (from $64), which represents a slight upside potential from current levels. The report follows the company’s recent quarter earnings releases.

Thill commented: “We believe SPLK remains one of the best ways to play the emerging Big Data category. The valuation premium is deserved in our view, reflecting SPLK’s 1) continued financial outperformance; 2) ability to capture legacy budgets within areas like SIEM and IT ops mgmt. that have large TAMs and which are shifting in SPLK’s favor; and 3) potential to build a true platform with a unique app ecosystem atop the differentiated technology.”

“We believe SPLK’s role in the IT landscape will only become more strategic and along with the executive bench strength, demonstrated execution track record, and conservative guide, we see upside to the stock.”

According to TipRanks.com, which measures analysts’ and bloggers’ success rate based on how their calls perform, analyst Brent Thill has a total average return of 14.4% and a 73.3% success rate. Thill has a 20.4% average return when recommending SPLK, and is ranked #85 out of 3377 analysts.