UPDATE: Credit Suisse Reiterates Outperform Rating, Raises PT on Sina Corp. on Better-Than-Expected 4Q12 Results

In a report published Wednesday, Credit Suisse reiterated its Outperform rating on Sina Corp.

, and slightly raised its price target from $74.00 to $75.00. Credit Suisse noted, “Weibo-registered users were up 73% YoY to 503 mn in 2012; the DAU was up 82% YoY/ 9% QoQ to 46.2 mn in 4Q12. But the average time that daily active users spent slightly decreased in 4Q12 due to the competition pressure from WeChat. Weibo revenue in 4Q12 was US$28 mn, up 10% QoQ, (US$21 mn from advertising, US$7.5 mn from VAS). Weibo loss in 4Q was reduced to US$15 mn, down from US$17 mn in 3Q. We forecast Weibo to break even in 4Q13. Weibo is testing its self-supporting advertising system (or news feed), which will be launched in March 2013, at least three-month delay, as Sina is finding ways to balance between monetisation and user experience and building a comprehensive distribution network. The contribution from news feed won't be significant in 1H13. Currently, the ad price of news feed is still quite low due to limited advertiser numbers, but mgmt. expects to raise the price in late 2013. Weibo's top advertisers were auto, IT and finance services, similar to portal's advertisers.” Sina Corp. closed on Tuesday at $53.48.