Did the Toyota Motor Corp. ™ actually transfer market share over to is competitors, or was the hype of the current recall and Toyota’s damaged reputations just that - hype, with no real bite? As it turns out, the expected 11.9% drop in January’s year-over-year sales for Toyota wasn’t aggressive enough… sales were down 15.8% on a year-over-year basis.

Ford Motor Co. (F), on the other hand, saw a nice 25% increase in total January sales on a year-over-year basis. Korean carmaker Subaru saw a 28% increase in January sales. General Motors reported an increase of 22% in January sales.

Don’t get too impressed just yet though. KIA said its January sales were flat relative to last year’s, indicating that a rising tide of car buyers isn’t lifting all boats.

As for January’s market share (the litmus test), Ford says it improved its share from 14% last January to 16% this January. Toyota’s market share was expected to drop to 14.7% in January in the shadow of the recall - the lowest since March of 2006. In light of the bigger-than-expected dip in January’s results though, the market share may be even slightly less than anticipated.

Strong sales of mid-sized and fuel-efficient cars was the biggest reason for most of the year-over-year improvements for any carmakers who had them.

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