Office Depot beat expectations with its quarterly results, posting a loss  of $61.5 million in the fourth quarter ending Dec. 26. The loss was a significant improvement on the $1.54 billion loss over the same period the previous year.

The retailer registered sales of $12.1 billion, a decrease of 16 percent from $14.5 billion in 2008 as its core small business customers and consumers continued to be hurt by the economic slump.

Office Depot's fourth-quarter sales were $3.1 billion, down 6 percent from the $3.27 billion reported in same period in 2008

Quarterly sales for its North American retail stores were $1.3 billion, a decrease of 9 percent compared to the same quarter in 2009, but that was "stronger than anticipated," said Chief Financial Officer Mike Newman in a press release.