DETROIT, Feb. 3 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp. sales dropped 16 percent in January as the automaker reeled from a massive recall and rivals Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. surged past it in the US market.

Toyota's US market share fell to its lowest level since January 2006 and its monthly sales dropped below 100,000 vehicles for the first time in more than a decade.

GM's results were buoyed by fleet sales, which rose to 29 percent of total sales, from 25 percent last year.

Partly as a result, GM's US market share jumped to almost 21 percent, from 15 percent a year earlier when the automaker had been hit by consumer concern about its US government bailout.
Overall auto sales rose 6 percent from a year earlier, powered by revived purchases by rental car companies which had dropped out of the market a year earlier due to tight credit and concerns about a deepening slump in the economy.

As Toyota sales spun into reverse, Ford and Hyundai Motor Co. emerged as the big winners, each posting 24 percent sales gains.

In one telling benchmark, the Ford brand outsold Toyota, Scion and Lexus on a combined basis. GM's volume-leading Chevrolet brand also topped Toyota on its own.

''Auto sales and market share is kind of like a high-speed road race and if you get caught up in the gravel on the shoulder you can get passed really fast, and essentially that is what happened to Toyota,'' Autoconomy analyst Erich Merkle said. ''Right now we have to find out how long it is going to take them to get back on pavement again,'' Merkle said.

That cost Toyota almost 20,000 sales of cars and light trucks, executives estimated. That would represent more than $500 million in lost revenue during the last week of January based on average vehicle sale prices.

In addition, Toyota faces costs of $250 million for its first set of repairs under recall. The total cost of the recall would easily top $1 billion to Toyota and could deepen in the weeks ahead, analysts have said.

Nissan Motor Co. appeared to benefit from Toyota's woes as its sales rose 16 percent. GM's sales rose 14 percent.

Honda Motor Co., which made a point of not following its rivals in targeting Toyota customers, saw its sales drop 5 percent.

Chrysler, still the industry's weakest player, posted a sales drop of 8 percent. Chrysler, now controlled by Fiat SpA, has seen sales fall for 25 consecutive months.

Ford's US market share ticked up to 16 percent in January. Toyota, which had 17 percent market share in 2009, saw its share fall to just above 14 percent.

Toyota's US brand chief, Bob Carter, said sales for Toyota models outside the recall appeared to have dodged the fallout from the safety action but cautioned that that could change. ''I'm not underestimating the confusion,'' he said.

Ford shares ended the day more than 2.4 percent higher. The stock has posted an eight-fold gain over the past year.

By contrast, shares of Toyota declined 2.2 percent in New York trade, compounding a slide that has sent the stock down by 14 percent since its recall was announced on Jan. 21.

''We consider Ford as one of the companies best-positioned to benefit from Toyota's tribulations but see others looking to gain too,'' Standard & Poor's equity analyst Efraim Levy said.

A major factor behind Ford's gain was that sales to fleet operators including rental companies more than doubled, accounting for about 37 percent of its overall sales.