DETROIT (AP) — General Motors Corp. accomplished something in the fourth quarter of 2006 that domestic automakers have been unable to do for some time: it reported a profit.Now comes the hard part — repeating that success. The company’s chief financial officer stopped short of promising it this year, but he did pledge continued improvement over last year’s numbers.

For the quarter, the world’s biggest automaker on yesterday reported net income of $950 million due to the benefits of cost cuts, higher automotive revenues and a gain on the sale of its finance division. It was a turnaround from a $6.6 billion loss in the same period a year ago.

GM, which is undergoing a massive overhaul that includes shedding thousands of jobs and closing plants to become more competitive with Asian automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp., wound up with a loss of $2 billion for all of 2006 compared with a restated loss of $10.4 billion in 2005.

Chief financial officer Fritz Henderson said despite the fourth-quarter profit, no one at GM is declaring victory over the company’s financial woes.

He would say only that he expects GM’s year-over-year performance to improve in 2007, and he would not predict whether the company would continue to be profitable through the year.

“The objective is to build a successful and profitable enterprise going forward,” he told reporters yesterday after the earnings report was released.

The positive fourth-quarter results included $770 million in special items attributed mainly to the sale of a 51 percent stake in GM’s financial arm, General Motors Acceptance Corp., to an investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management. But GM said it would have made $180 million in the quarter without the GMAC proceeds.

Henderson said GM’s automotive operations performed better than expected for the quarter with increased revenue in North America due to higher transaction prices and higher sales volumes and revenues overseas.

Worldwide, the company said it made $228 million selling cars and trucks for the quarter and $422 million for the calendar year. Its North American automotive operations lost $14 million for the quarter and $779 million for the year, but the annual figures were $5 billion better than the previous year.