‘I need this store’

Walmart is doing some rare pruning.

The world’s largest retailer announced Friday it is closing 269 stores, including 154 in the U.S., including all of its locations under its smallest-format concept store called Walmart Express. The other big chunk is in its challenging Brazilian market.

The stores being shuttered account for a fraction of the company’s 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1 percent of its global revenue. Walmart Stores Inc. said the store closures will affect 16,000 workers, 10,000 of them in the U.S. Its global workforce is 2.2 million, 1.4 million in the U.S. alone.

The store closures will start at the end of the month.

The Walmart in Lihue is not on the list of stores set to be closed, which pleased some shoppers on Friday.

“Thank you, Jesus! I need this store,” said Stephanie Silva of Kapaa. “We come here pretty often (at least a couple times a week) because it’s convenient and close to Kapaa. They have good deals and we get everything — down to dog food.”

Avis Kaona of Anahola was equally pleased to hear the store would remain open.

“The people are friendly and the store is clean,” she said. “I come at least once a week. If it wasn’t here, we’d have to go back to the old way of comparing ads and planning how and when to go shopping,” she said.

Shalyn Tupou and Serena Kahaunaele of Anahola visited Walmart Friday.

“Where would we get baby stuff?” Tupou said. “The prices are pretty good at Walmart — especially for baby supplies.”

The announcement comes three months after Walmart Stores Inc. CEO Doug McMillon told investors that the world’s largest retailer would review its fleet of stores with the goal of becoming more nimble in the face of increased competition from all fronts, including from online rival Amazon.com.

“Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business,” McMillon said in a statement. “Closing stores is never an easy decision. But it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future.”

Michael Exstein, an analyst at Credit Suisse, described the moves as “baby steps” in his report published Friday, but he believes they are positive ones. He noted that this is the first mass closing that Walmart has announced in at least two decades.

“It is a sign that Walmart has begun the process of dealing with unproductive locations in a much more tangible and coherent way,” he wrote. “But we continue to believe that Walmart needs a much larger restructuring of its store base in order to narrow its focus as it seeks to improve its sales and returns, especially internationally.”

Of the 154 store closures in the U.S., 102 of them are under the Walmart Express name, which were opened as a test in 2011. The company operates more than 5,000 stores overall in the U.S.

More than 95 percent of the stores set to be closed in the U.S. are within 10 miles of another Walmart. The Bentonville, Arkansas, company said it is working to ensure that workers are placed in nearby locations.

In Hawaii, Walmart has 10 locations and 4,142 associates. The average hourly wage in Hawaii for full-time associates is $15.31, as of Nov. 16.

Sheena Bean of Kapahi said closing the Walmart on Kauai might not be all that bad.

“It would be good for small businesses. I shop here because I don’t have a choice — all the small businesses disappeared after the big stores came here,” she said. I own a small business (Naisish Hand Made), and it’s hard to compare ± they sell a pair of shorts for $5 and I need to sell it for $35.”

Walmart said that it’s still sticking to its plan announced last year to open 50 to 60 supercenters, 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets and 7 to 10 Sam’s Clubs in the U.S. during the fiscal year that begins Feb. 1. Outside the U.S., Walmart plans to open 200 to 240 stores.