Rite Aid Corp posted its 10th straight quarterly loss as customers cut back on discretionary purchases and the drug store chain worked on refreshing its stores to reignite sales growth.

The company's net loss was $83.9 million, or 10 cents per share, in the fiscal third quarter ended on November 28, narrower than the loss of $243.1 million, or 30 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company credited cost cuts and tighter inventory control.

Analysts expected a loss of 18 cents a share, and sales of $6.38 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Rite Aid's quarterly sales fell 1.8 percent to $6.35 billion. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 0.5 percent in the quarter.

For the full fiscal year, the company said it expects sales of between $25.6 billion to $25.9 billion.

Rite Aid also said it expected a fiscal year loss of between $0.50 and $0.66 a share, compared with the loss of 48 cents to 74 cents a share it forecast in September. At that time, it said fiscal-year sales should fall to $25.7 billion to $26.2 billion, with same-store sales in a range of down 1 percent to up 1 percent.

Rite Aid operates most of its stores on the East and West U.S. coasts and trails Walgreen Co and CVS Caremark Corp in sales, number of locations and market share.

(Reporting by and Jessica Wohl in Chicago and Phil Wahba in New York, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

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