CARY, N.C. -

There appeared to be a bit of auto retail challenge around shutdowns in Ontario and Quebec as 2021 gets underway, and that is impacting certified pre-owned sales. Here's a roundup of January CPO sales results shared by automakers, thus far.

At Hyundai, its certified sales fell 25% year-over-year, coming in at 642 for January. Of course, last year marked the strongest ever CPO January for the brand, and despite the decline, “we are still very satisfied with the results considering the headwinds facing the market in January,” said Charles Plewes, who heads up remarketing and CPO for Hyundai Auto Canada Corp., in an email.

“Most of our dealers in Quebec and Ontario were closed to walk-in traffic, which made sales very challenging,” Plewes said.

Nissan and Infiniti also faced similar headwinds in Canada during January.

Nissan had 599 CPO sales, down from 1,023 a year ago.  Infiniti CPO sales fell from 151 in January 2020 to 80 last month.

“January was a real tough month,” said Joel Gregory, who heads up CPO for Nissan and Infiniti in Canada, via email.

“Provincial ‘lockdowns’ in the two highest volume provinces (Ontario and Quebec) hampered business making any type of foot traffic into dealerships very challenging,” Gregory said.

Volvo continued to show gains, it said, with 229 CPO sales in Canada, a 6% increase.

In terms of how 2020 wrapped up, Hyundai had its strongest year ever for CPO sales. It moved 11,869 certified vehicles in 2020, up 9% year-over-year. That sum was also 6.5% stronger than the prior record, which was set in 2013.

Hyundai sold 864 CPO vehicles in the final month of the year, its strongest December ever and a 16% year-over-year increase. December was among Hyundai’s eight record months for CPO sales in 2020, Plewes said.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz Canada's CPO program notched six record sales months (January, February, June, July, August and September). June was particularly noteworthy, as it marked an all-time high with 1,500 certified sales, the company said. 

Mercedes also had another record CPO penetration rate, which reached 86.4% in 2020. That was up 4.1 percentage points from 2019, when the prior record was set. 

The pre-owned division overall (including CPO and non-CPO used) had 15,300 sales in 2020 and three record months (Feburary, June and July), a trio that includes the all-time mark (June, with 1,750 pre-owned sales), according to Mercedes.

A few other automakers also shared Canadian CPO sales results with Auto Remarketing Canada. 

Subaru moved 4,637 CPO vehicles in 2020, up 13.7% from 2019.

It closed the year with 361 certified sales in December, up from 296 a year earlier.

Next up, Nissan had 11,108 CPO sales for the year, down from 15,434 in 2019. December sales were at 911, up from 879 a year earlier.

Infiniti moved 1,583 CPO units in 2020, compared to 2,036 in 2019. It had 103 CPO sales in December, compared to 152 in December 2019.