Abercrombie & Fitch posted a much better-than-expected quarterly profit on Friday, helped by cost cuts, and the retailer's shares rose more than 6 percent.

The retailer of young men and women's clothing said net income fell to $38.8 million, or 44 cents per share, in the third quarter ended on October 31 from $63.9 million, or 72 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 30 cents per share. Analysts on average were expecting 20 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net sales fell 15 percent to $765.4 million as same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, fell 22 percent.

Same-store sales, a closely watched metric of retail health, fell 18 percent at the flagship Abercrombie & Fitch chain, 22 percent at the Abercrombie kids' chain, 26 percent at Hollister and 30 percent at Ruehl, which the company is planning to close by the end of the current fiscal year.

Abercrombie said it expected to incur charges of $60 million to exit the Ruehl business, which is down from its prior estimate of $65 million.

The company also said it was on track to open an Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store in Tokyo in December, as well as five more Hollister stores in Europe during the fourth quarter.

In the next fiscal year, the company expects to open flagship Abercrombie & Fitch stores in Copenhagen and Fukuoka, Japan.

Abercrombie shares rose to $39.00 in premarket trading from Thursday's close at $36.76 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by Derek Caney and Lisa Von Ahn)