NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The traditional Big Three automakers saw October U.S. auto sales fall by nearly a third from the record-setting pace a year earlier, the companies reported Friday.

Overall industry U.S. sales were off 27.3 percent from year-earlier results, according to auto sales tracker Autodata. It put the industry's annual sales rate in the month at 15.5 million vehicles, compared to 21.3 million in October of 2001, giving it the worst sales month since August of 1998.

General Motors Corp. said sales were down 32.2 percent on a daily sales rate basis, giving it total vehicle sales of 387,991. Sales of car models fell 40 percent on the daily sales rate basis, while light trucks, which include pickups, vans and sport/utility vehicles, fell 25.7 percent.

GM officials said that overall they were pleased with sales results, despite the steep decline, saying the white-hot sales of a year earlier weren't a fair comparison. October 2001 was the first full month of zero-interest financing incentives that GM introduced in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack that helped drive high sales.

GM said that U.S. sales for the world's largest automaker were up 7 percent from September of this year, even as the overall U.S. vehicle sales fell from the September level. A GM executive conceded that the reintroduction of zero-interest financing offers in July led to two months of very strong sales that hurt October results, and that growing consumer worries also were hurting recent results.

"The strong third quarter creates some payback in the fourth quarter, but I don't want to underplay we're seeing some softening in the month as well," said Paul Ballew, GM's executive director for market and industry analysis. "October was a very very tough month to interpret."

Still Ballew said that GM continues to gain market share, and that share of retail sales to consumers, which excludes fleet sales to businesses, have been even stronger.

Ford Motor Co., the world's No. 2 automaker, sold 287,314 new vehicles, down 31 percent from the year-ago total. Sales of new cars fell 34 percent while light trucks dropped 29 percent.

George Pipas, Ford's U.S. sales analysis manager, joked with analysts and reporters that a child had scared him on Halloween by coming to his door dressed as October's auto sales, but he also cautioned that comparisons with year-ago results were not especially valid. He suggested that comparisons with October 2000 were more valid, but the most recent month, even with its own round of zero-interest incentives, was nearly 4 percent below the October 2000 sales figure.

Ford's fleet sales to businesses increased from a year earlier, but retail sales to consumers fell about 40 percent. Sales declined in virtually every vehicle model except for some higher-end models sold by Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover. Ford executives said they believe industry fundamentals still are strong and that they are gaining market share.

Chrysler Group, the North American unit of the world's No. 3 automaker, DaimlerChrysler AG, also reported a 31 percent decline in the daily sales rate as overall sales fell to 150,254 vehicles.

Chrysler's car sales were off 35 percent, while light truck sales fell 30 percent. Only the Neon showed a year-to-year improvement.

Still despite the sales declines, shares of General Motors (GM: up $0.87 to $34.12, Research, Estimates) and Ford (F: down $0.03 to $8.43, Research, Estimates) were both higher in late afternoon trading Friday, as were shares of the American depository receipts of DaimlerChrysler (DCX: up $0.64 to $34.74, Research, Estimates).