Data Point
Certified Pre-Owned Sales Rebound in August
Friday September 9, 2022
Article Highlights
- Certified pre-owned (CPO) sales increased month over month but underperformed the overall used-vehicle retail market in August.
- August CPO sales were up 2.6% over July while used retail sales increased by an estimated 11%.
- August CPO sales are down 5% year over year while the overall used-retail sales are down an estimated 9% year over year.
Certified pre-owned (CPO) sales increased month over month but underperformed the overall used-vehicle retail market in August. August CPO sales rose to 211,609 units, up more than 5,000 units or a 2.6% increase over July. Year-over-year CPO sales decreased by nearly 11,000 units, or 5.1% lower than in August 2021.
August 2022 CPO Sales
Leveraging a same-store set of dealerships selected to represent the country from Dealertrack, we estimate that used retail sales increased 11% in August from July and that used retail sales were down 9% year over year. Compared to August 2019, sales were down 19%, which was an improvement from July, when sales were down 29%, based on the same-store results.
According to Chris Frey, senior manager of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive: “While CPOs remain the next best alternative to new vehicles in this market, our current sales rate is, on average, 30,000 less per month than in 2019. Year-to-date CPO sales are down almost 16% through August. Currently, CPO sales are on track to finish near 2.4 million in 2022, down around 11% from last year’s 2.7 million.”