SAN FRANCISCO -

There is likely to be nearly 3 million used-vehicle sales this month, according to TrueCar, which said in an analysis released Monday that this would be close to a 6-percent gain from January 2014 numbers.

Specifically, TrueCar expects there will be a combined 2,921,002 used sales between independent dealers, franchised dealers and private-party transactions in January.This would be a 5.8-percent year-over-year uptick.

This continues the strong used-car market the industry showed in 2014, when according to CNW Research, there were 42.05 million used retail sales industry-wide. That was up a smidge from 42 million used sales in 2013.

Of that annual total for 2014, 9.59 million sales occurred in the fourth quarter, up from 9.54 million in Q4 2013, CNW indicated.

“As (Cox Automotive chief economist) Tom (Webb) has previously shared in some of his calls, available credit and attractive financing has helped drive the rise in used vehicles — during Q4, in particular,” Manheim North America president Janet Barnard said Friday in a NADA Convention & Expo press conference in San Francisco.

“And in response, during 2014, we seized the opportunity through NextGear Capital – our financing arm – to offer more $3 billion in outstanding credit and financing to help our dealers grow their business,” Barnard said, adding that Manheim also upped its stake in Go Financial, which provides subprime lending services for dealers.

Webb, who  authored the 2015 Used Car Market Report that Manheim released at NADA, said in the report: “For franchised dealers, five consecutive years of higher new-vehicle sales would have in the past created a challenge to keep focused on used-vehicle operations. Not so in 2014.

“Dealers fully understood that an efficient used-vehicle department is not only an important profit center in its own right, but also key to maximizing new vehicle and fixed operations,” he continued.

“Independent dealers in 2014 once again found themselves wrestling with inventory acquisition challenges as the usually strong and steady flow of units from franchised dealers remained lower than in the past as new-car dealers retained more of their older, higher-mileage units received as trade-in,” Webb added. “By year-end, however, independent dealers were beginning to benefit from the increased flow of units into open auction channels. This will certainly continue to be the case in 2015.”

During Friday's press conference at NADA, Webb's presentation included Automotive News data indicating that used sales, while evening out a bit in 2014, have been on an upward trend for several years.