CARY, N.C. -

Almost a year ago, Lotpop founder Jasen Rice said in an episode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast that the certified pre-owned segment could emerge as the post-pandemic “winner” in automotive.

While COVID-19 is certainly not over, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And Rice’s CPO prediction appears to be ringing true, particularly in March, which was a record month for certified sales, according to Cox Automotive.

The company’s analysis of Motor Intelligence data indicates there were 286,061 certified pre-owned sales in March, beating year-ago figures by 80% and February sales by 36%.

They were also more than 7% stronger than the prior record of 265,878 CPO sales, which happened in March 2019.

First-quarter certified sales came in at 696,828 units, beating year-ago figures by nearly 14%.

That’s quite a leap, especially considering that January and February CPO sales were down year-over-year.

More specifically, there were 201,023 CPO sales in the first month of the year, compared to 215,959 certified sales in January 2020, the Cox analysis shows.

In February, there 209,744 certified sales, compared to 238,229 in February 2020.

But March’s CPO sales increase of more than 80,000 vehicles more than made up the difference.

Brand results 

And in addition to the overall industry record, Mazda North America Operations reported its best-ever month for certified sales, moving 7,834 units. That beat year-ago figures by 74%.

Elsewhere, Mercedes-Benz USA reported a strong Q1 for CPO, moving 34,995 units. That beat year-ago figures by 9.0%.

At BMW of North America, Q1 certified sales reached 28,152 units for the BMW brand (up 2.2% year-over-year) and 2,727 for the MINI brand (up 10.7%).

Volvo’s quarterly CPO sales total came in at 9,510 units, having moved 2,662 certified vehicles in January, 2,956 in February and 3,892 in March.

Cox said in its analysis that the leaders in the CPO clubhouse remain Toyota, Honda and Chevrolet. That trio combined for a 32% certified market share last month. For full-year 2020, they combined for a 30% share, Cox said.

Overall used-car sales

Looking at the overall used-car market, Cox Automotive said the seasonally adjusted annualized rate of total used-vehicle sales was 40.5 million last month, which is 117% stronger than March 2020, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the impact to markets quickly escalated. 

In addition to soundly beating the year-ago used-car SAAR of 18.5 million, the used-car sales rate in March was also stronger than February’s clip (38.0 million) and where the market was in March 2019 (39.2 million), according to Cox.

Looking at Cox Automotive’s estimated used retail SAAR, which includes only the sales involving a dealer, March’s rate came in at 22.2 million. That compares to 9.8 million in March 2020, 20.8 million in February 2021 and 20.6 million in March 2019.

Cox Automotive is forecasting 39.3 million total used-vehicle sales in 2021, softer than the 40.0 million in 2019 but up from 37.2 million last year. 

The company anticipates 40.2 million total used-vehicle sales in 2022 and then 39.8 million in 2023. 

Analysts are projecting 21.5 million retail used-vehicle sales this year, which would beat both 2020 and 2019 figures. Last year, there were 19.7 million used retail sales, down from 21.0 million in 2019.