Charisse Jones and Nathan Bomey

USA TODAY

Sears Holdings said Thursday that it would close another 28 Kmart locations, including the Salem location on Mission Street, as it continues its cost-cutting campaign amid a precipitous decline in the department-store sector.

The company also posted declining sales and profits, but the results outpaced analyst expectations and led to a surge in its stock price.

The Kmart closures add to a list of 330 Sears or Kmart locations shuttered or set to be closed later this year as the retailer seeks stability.

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List of announced closures

1445 S Power Road, Mesa AZ

23222 W Valencia Blvd, Valencia CA

10500 Wichlow Way, Jackson / Martell CA

10400 Rosecrans, Bellflower CA

16968 Main Street, Hesperia CA

15200 E Colfax Avenue, Aurora CO

200 W Belleview, Englewood CO

100 Main Street North, Southbury CT

900 N Miami Beach Blvd, North Miami Beach FL

5590 Mableton Pkwy, Mableton GA

4101 W 95Th St, Oaklawn IL

7230 Westfield Plaza Dr, Belleville IL

265 S Illinois Rte 83, Elmhurst IL

1740 Sw Wanamaker Road, Topeka KS

7601 23 Mile Road, Utica / Shelby Township MI

4001 N Euclid Avenue, Bay City MI

545 West Sanilac, Sandusky MI

401 Route 38, Moorestown NJ

808 Route 46, Parsippany NJ

810 Paul Road Rochester, (Chili) NY

10 Cobblestone Court Drive, Victor NY

374 Windsor Hwy, Rte 32, Vails Gate (New Windsor) NY

2600 Lincoln Way E, Massillon OH

2470 Mission Se, Salem OR

2620 Moreland Road, Willow Grove PA

4701 Tilghman Street, Allentown PA

296 Garfield Ave, Cranston RI

1610 Church St, Conway SC

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The company, which will still have about 1,000 stores after the closures, said in a public filing earlier this year that it believes it has at least another 12 months of cash to continue operating.

Sears is betting on a customer loyalty program, Shop Your Way, to help lead a turnaround. In addition to new ways for members to earn points, Sears will analyze the members' past purchases and preferences in order to tailor its suggestions. The company also won investors' favor with a deal announced in July to sell its Kenmore appliance brand on Amazon.

Sears shares rose 6.42% to $9.12 in morning trading.

"We will continue to right-size our store footprint to ensure we are positioned to meet the realities of the changing retail environment,'' Rob Riecker, Sears Holdings' chief financial officer, said in a call with investors.

Sales at Sears and Kmart stores open at least a year, a key metric in the retail industry, tumbled 11.5% for the period, the company said Thursday. S&P Global Market Intelligence analysts had estimated a same-store sales decline of 7.1%.

With many major retailers shuttering stores as shoppers increasingly browse online, Sears' latest round of closures was not unexpected, analysts said.

It "strikes me more as good store hygiene rather than a foreshadowing of another round of mass closures," said Greg Portell, lead partner in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney, a global strategy and management consulting firm. "It is good for a retailer to always be challenging their footprint.''

But Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, sees the continuing store closures as more ominous.

They "signal that Sears is broken and that increasing numbers of people do not want to shop there,'' Saunders says, adding that the company needs the money generated by sales of its real estate to stay afloat. "This is much deeper than getting the footprint right or adapting to the modern era of retail. It's surgery to remove dead or dying parts of the organization.''

Pharmacy, grocery, household goods and consumer electronics sales fell sharply at Kmart. Home appliances, apparel, consumer electronics and lawn and garden sales tumbled at Sears.

The company posted a net loss of $251 million for its fiscal second quarter ended July 29, but that was down from a loss of $395 million in the same quarter a year earlier. It also beat S&P's projection of $266 million.

Fewer stores helped lead to revenue dropping 23% to $4.37 billion. Still, that was better than S&P's predicted $4.21 billion.

The results were “a little bit heartening but still left some open areas of worry,’’ says Portell. “The fact that they were able to deliver better than expected earnings while their same store sales declined dramatically was in my mind an indication that their cost (cutting) program seems to be on track.''

But, he added, "how long they can sustain double-digit same store losses while still keeping cost cuts ahead of the trend will be an ongoing area of attention.''

In a series of financial maneuvers, Sears said it had gained access to additional borrowing capacity and extended the maturity on certain loans to allow it to stay afloat longer as it continues its restructuring plan.

As recently as 2012, the company had 1,305 Kmart stores and 867 full-line Sears stores in the U.S. But by the end of the latest quarter, Sears said 619 full-line Sears and 610 Kmart locations remained.