Seiyu Ltd. said Tuesday its first-half group operating loss narrowed to 1.36 billion yen from 2.48 billion yen for the same period last year, thanks to higher sales of household goods.

Seiyu, 53 percent owned by U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc., posted a net loss of 54 billion yen in the January-June period on sales of 467.9 billion yen, down 2.9 percent. Its pretax loss shrank from 6.92 billion yen to 4.28 billion yen.

The net loss was due to a one-time writeoff of assets, the retailer said.