DEARBORN, Mich. | At $282 million, Ford Motor Co.'s first-quarter loss was much improved over the $1.4 billion in red ink it posted during the same quarter last year.

Company officials touted the results as a sign that its restructuring plans were taking hold, but Ford still is struggling to make money on its core business -- selling cars and trucks in North America.

The first-quarter loss, announced Thursday, was Ford's seventh consecutive negative quarter, but the automaker said the smaller deficit reflected its efforts aimed at cutting costs and rolling out new products to compete with Asian automakers.

Ford's revenue rose 5 percent, its loss excluding special items was smaller than Wall Street expected and its shares rose about 4 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

CEO Alan Mulally said in a conference call with reporters and industry analysts that Ford was making progress.

"Although these first-quarter results are encouraging, we still have a long way to go to turn around this business," he said. "The basics of our business are improving," he said.

Ford's new vehicle sales in the United States fell more than 13 percent for the quarter and its market share dropped from 17.2 percent in the first quarter of 2006 to 15.1 percent.

The Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX crossover vehicles were performing well, but sales fell in the company's flagship F-Series pickup truck line and its Explorer sport utility vehicle. Both had been huge profit centers for the company in the past.

The overall loss of 15 cents per share for the January-March period compared with 76 cents per share in the same period a year ago.

Revenue rose to $43 billion from $40.8 billion a year ago.

Several industry analysts reacted to Ford's improvement with caution, saying that the company still faces significant challenges for the remainder of the year.

"Nothing there has really changed our feelings that 2007 will be a year of tremendous cash losses," said Gregg Lemos-Stein, a credit analyst for Standard & Poor's in New York.

Although Ford's cash flow improved in the first quarter, it is still on track to burn up $17 billion through 2009 to cover losses and restructuring costs, Chief Financial Officer Don LeClair said.

"I think the quarter represented a high point" for the year, said David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities.

Although the new crossovers and heavy-duty pickup trucks are off to a good start, Healy attributed Ford's sales decline to its plan to reduce low-profit sales to rental car companies and to sluggish sales of its older models.

Without special items, primarily restructuring costs, Ford said it would have lost $171 million, or 9 cents per share, in the latest quarter compared with an operating profit of $223 million, or 12 cents per share, a year ago.

The loss excluding special items was far less than the loss of 60 cents per share consensus forecast by 16 analysts polled by Thomson Financial. The estimate typically excludes special items.

Despite the overall improvement, Ford said its core business in North America lost $614 million on automotive operations before taxes for the quarter, wider than the $442 million it lost in the first quarter of last year. North American automotive revenue dropped from $19.8 billion in the first quarter of last year to $18.2 billion.

Ford also posted a pretax loss in its Asia Pacific and Africa operations, but it made a pretax profit in Europe and South America, and in its financial services sector.

The Premier Automotive Group, which includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Aston Martin, reported a record pretax profit of $402 million for the quarter due largely to Volvo and Land Rover. Ford earned $22 million from its stake in Mazda, the company said.

"We continue to take the necessary steps to implement our turnaround plan and remain committed to our goal of achieving profitability no later than 2009," Mulally said.

Ford is trying to fend off Toyota Motor Corp. to keep the title of the nation's No. 2 automaker. The Dearborn-based company lost $12.7 billion last year and is in the midst of slashing thousands of jobs, closing plants and rolling out new products in an effort to return to profitability.

Ford said Thursday that it shed 18,000 hourly and salaried workers in the first quarter, mainly through early retirement and buyout offers. The separation programs cost the company $874 million for the quarter in North America.

"We achieved these hourly and salary reductions with minimum disruption to the business and continuing quality improvement," Mulally said in the call.

Mulally said that with normal attrition, the company is on track to meet its goals of reducing its North American blue-collar work force by 25,000 to 30,000 by the end of 2008 and 10,000 white-collar workers, most by the end of the first quarter this year.

Mulally also said the company has completed negotiations with the United Auto Workers union on work rule and other changes at nearly all of its plants, making them more productive.