The Guangzhou Qianjin branch of Trust-Mart, which is majority-owned by US-based global hypermarket giant Wal-Mart, will close on December 18, the National Business Daily (NBD) newspaper reported Wednesday.

This comes amid a wave of store closures by parent Wal-Mart in an effort to cut costs. In October, Wal-Mart told media that it will close 50 stores in Brazil and China with unsatisfactory sales performances.

Several reasons have led to the decision to close the Qianjin Trust-Mart. The store, which has been in business since 1999, has outdated equipment and will cost too much to update, Zheng Zhong, a PR manager with Wal-Mart China, said in the NBD story. Trust-Mart also has other stores in the area which is within 6 kilometers from the Qianjin store, said Zheng.

This closure will save renovation costs and is also part of the company's plan for rationalization, the manager told NBD. Wal-Mart could not be reached for comment by press time.

Fierce competition from other retailers is another main reason for the Qianjin store's closure. In the area where the Qianjin store is located, there are also hypermarkets like Carrefour, ParknShop, and China Resources Vanguard, according to NBD.

Wal-Mart has already closed some stores in the Chinese mainland, media reports said.

In the next year and a half, the company will close 15 to 30 stores in the mainland whose sales performance has been much lower than expected, accounting for about 9 percent of Wal-Mart's total stores but less than 3 percent of sales, according to media reports.

Wal-Mart has almost 400 stores in the mainland, among which 80 are in Guangdong.

Li Ling, another PR manager with Wal-Mart China, explained to NBD the closing of several outlets is due to the expiration of rental contracts and changes in traffic or population density in neighborhoods.

Analysts said this reflects the challenges that large retail stores are facing, and is also partly because of competition from e-commerce platforms.