NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - General Motors Corp. reported sharply improved fourth-quarter earnings Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations, and said it expects to top current first-quarter forecasts.

The world's largest automaker earned $850 million, or $1.62 a share, excluding special items, up from $255 million, or 60 cents, on the same basis a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call had a consensus earnings-per-share forecast of $1.53.

CFO of General Motors John Devine talks about his company's revenues, the safety of SUV's and the future of car sales. Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

That results include an operating loss at GM's Hughes Electronics unit but exclude the unit's special items, including a break-up fee it received from EchoStar Communications (DISH: Research, Estimates) when regulators blocked its purchase of Hughes (GMH: Research, Estimates).

The company repeated its earlier full-year earnings forecast of $5.00 a share, excluding Hughes, and said it expects to earn $1.50 a share on that basis in the first quarter. First Call's forecasts are not comparable since they include results from Hughes. The earnings tracker's consensus forecasts is $1.26 a share in the first quarter and $4.62 a share for the year, including losses at Hughes. But GM Chief Financial Officer John Devine told analysts that first-quarter earnings per share including Hughes should be about $1.45 a share.

Devine also said that GM remains committed to it goal of annual earnings per share of $10.00, excluding Hughes, by 2005. He said that pensions underfunding due greatly to the current U.S. markets will make that more difficult.

"Without the pension drag, we'd expect to make about $7.50 a share this year," Devine said. "We're not excusing the pension expense. But we'll be working through it, we'll get this behind us. Making the $10 (a share target) with the pension drag will be difficult but we're still committed to it."

Including all special items, GM earned $1.0 billion, or $1.71 a share. Excluding all results from Hughes, GM earned $934 million, or $1.67 a share, up from $386 million, or 69 cents, a year earlier.

Shares of GM (GM: down $0.47 to $39.73, Research, Estimates), a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, gained in early trading Thursday.

Its automotive operations earned $563 million, up from $66 million a year earlier, with improvements coming in all the various regions around the globe. Its core North American operations earned $633 million, up from $392 million, while its Asian-Pacific operations earned $66 million, up from $25 million. The other regions trimmed losses, with the European loss narrowing to $129 million from $240 million and the Latin American loss dropping to $7 million from $111 million.

Total vehicle sales rose to 2.17 million in the quarter and 8.38 million for the year, up from 1.98 million and 8.07 million in the respective periods a year earlier. GM said its U.S. market share for the year increased to 28.3 percent from 28.1 percent a year earlier.

General Motors Acceptance Corp., the corporation's finance arm, had record fourth-quarter income of $524 million, up from $435 million a year earlier.

Revenue rose to a quarterly record of $48.7 billion from $45.95 billion a year earlier, with all units and regions showing improvement except GM Latin America.