Walmart’s UK subsidiary Asda – Great Britain’s third largest supermarket chain – plans to shed hundreds of jobs as its adjusts to a loss of market share.

According to a report on Sky News, Asda will inform affected staff as early as this week, with most of those affected likely to be located at the company’s head office in Leeds.

While rivals Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have released Christmas trading results which exceeded their predictions, Asda has to date stayed mum on its festive season figures. Analysts suspect that not only ‘full service’ rivals have eaten into its share, but German discounters Aldi and Lidl as well.

According to a report in the Retail Gazette, recent data from Kantar Worldpanel suggests that sales declined by 3.5 per cent in the 12 weeks to January 3, reducing Asda’s share of the grocery market by 0.6 per cent to 16.2 per cent

In a statement, Asdfa confirmed it has started to talk to colleagues in head office functions about what the changing grocery retail landscape means for them.

“We have made some difficult but necessary decisions but we must discuss these with our colleagues before we talk publicly.”

Asda has 170,000 staff across the UK; 3000 at its head office.