NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - General Motors Corp. saw a modest January sales decline as its key light truck sales fell sharply, dropping behind those of competitor Ford Motor Co., which reported a broad-based improvement in its new vehicle sales for the period.

GM (GM: up $0.23 to $36.56, Research, Estimates), the world's largest automaker, said U.S. new vehicle sales fell 2 percent to 293,086. It posted a 24 percent increase in car sales to 144,475, but its key light truck models, which include sport/utility vehicles, pickups and vans, fell 19 percent to 148,611. It was only the second time since June 2001 that it did not lead the industry in light truck sales.

GM executives blamed the drop in light truck sales on strong December sales of those models, which both satisfied demand for some and left low inventories of hot sellers.

"Considering GM's very strong performance in December, our January results were in line with our expectations," said John Smith, group vice president of North America vehicle sales.

GM said it was is leaving first quarter production targets unchanged.

No. 2 automaker Ford (F: up $0.09 to $9.20, Research, Estimates) had a 4.1 percent increase in U.S. sales, with gains for both cars and light trucks. It said sales rose for all its makes except Jaguar and Land Rover.

Overall U.S. sales came to 242,555 vehicles, with cars posting a 5.6 percent rise to 84,141 units and light trucks increasing 3.3 percent to 158,414.

Ford manager of sales analysis George Pipas said the company believes industrywide sales will come in essentially flat in January compared with a year earlier. And he believes Ford, therefore, was able to gain market share in the period.

"Our goal is to increase market share in 2003. There's a long way to go...but this is a good start," Pipas said during a conference call with analysts.

Among other automakers, Chrysler Group, the North American unit of DaimlerChrysler AG (DCX: up $0.85 to $31.45, Research, Estimates), reported a 12 percent decline in January U.S. sales to 129,222 units, with both its cars and light trucks showing the same percentage drop in the period. Mercedes-Benz posted its best January for U.S. sales, up 3.7 percent to 15,650 vehicles.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. (TM: up $1.05 to $48.85, Research, Estimates), the nation's No. 4 automaker, said sales fell 5.7 percent to 119,329, as light truck sales fell even more, off 7.9 percent to 53,366. Honda Motor Co. (HMC: up $0.69 to $17.39, Research, Estimates) posted a 6 percent gain to 90,003, with sales of new SUV models such as the Pilot and Element helping lift its overall light truck sales 24 percent.