Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Corp reported Tuesday a 25.12 percent growth year-on-year in third-quarter net profit, which falls short of expectations for the firm that just regained control of China's most valuable herbal tea brand Wong Lo Kat, market insiders told the Global Times Tuesday.

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's third-quarter revenue reached 1.98 billion yuan ($317 million), an increase of 51.49 percent over last year, resulting in a 32.81 percent year-on-year income growth for the nine months ending September, according to its financial report posted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Tuesday.

The growth in revenue came mainly from acquiring Guangzhou Baiyuanshan Pharmaceutical Stock Co, and was also helped by satisfactory sales of Wong Lo Kat herbal tea, Zhao Yong, an industry analyst from Haitong Securities, told the Global Times Tuesday.

However, in light of sales of Wong Lo Kat under JDB, the brand should have granted Guangzhou Pharmaceutical a surge of at least 50 percent in net profits year-on-year, Yan Qiang, an industry analyst from Adfaith Management Consulting, told the Global Times Tuesday.

The company's subsidiary Guangzhou Wong Lo Kat Health Industry Co, which was established mainly to run Wong Lo Kat herbal tea after Guangzhou Pharmaceutical regained the trademark from JDB Group in May 2012, did not reveal sales volumes of Wong Lo Kat or its future promotion plan for the brand when contacted by the Global Times.

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical announced on May 21 that Wong Lo Kat herbal tea, newly packaged in a red can, was expected to contribute 30 billion yuan within five years and 60 billion yuan by 2020.

After losing the rights to use the brand, JDB immediately renamed its red-canned herbal tea as Jiaduobao and carried out intensive promotion, including sponsorship of Zhejiang TV's influential singing contest The Voice of China.

"With the aid of JDB's comprehensive selling channels and strong management team, brand promotion for Jiaduobao herbal tea made JDB lead the domestic herbal tea world in sales volume, despite having lost the trademark," Yan said.

Consultancy Horizon said in September that 47.9 percent of consumers would choose to buy Jiaduobao, compared with 15.2 percent for Wong Lo Kat.

"(Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's) selling network in the domestic herbal tea market is not as powerful as JDB's. If the company is lazy in optimizing resources and pushing into shops and supermarkets, the current most recognizable brand will be worth nothing to it," noted Yan.