FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -

AutoNation hosted its second quarterly conference call of the year on Wednesday, outlining its gains in several metrics.

The dealer group’s retail used-vehicle unit sales increased by 9 percent overall in the second quarter, jumping from 52,656 units in Q2 2014 to 57,370 units in Q2 2015.

Judging the same metric for the first half of the year, AutoNation has retailed 115,994 used-vehicle units overall in the first six months of 2015, a 10.7 percent jump from last year’s figure of 104,792.

Overall used-vehicle retail revenue for this year’s Q2 came in at roughly $1.1 billion, a 12.1 percent increase over last year’s second quarter overall result of roughly $989.1 million.

Overall gross profit was also up slightly for used units retailed by AutoNation in the second quarter, up 3 percent year-over-year and coming in at a total of $91.4 million for Q2 2015.

Mike Jackson, AutoNation’s chairman, chief executive officer and president, highlighted other details of the company’s achievements, including its 19th consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in earnings per share as well as its continued belief that over 17 million new vehicles will be retailed in the United States this year.

“We are pleased with how the AutoNation brand has been embraced, as well as the continued rollout of AutoNation Express and the progress of all our digital initiatives,” Jackson said. “Over 20 percent of our sales were generated through AutoNation websites for the first half of the year. The first phase of AutoNation Express, where a consumer can identify a vehicle, reserve that vehicle and put a deposit on that vehicle, was completed six months ahead of schedule. AutoNation is committed to providing transparency and delivering a peerless customer experience through initiatives such as AutoNation Express."

For a complete view of AutoNation’s second quarter results, click here.

Jackson addresses TrueCar matter

During the conference call, Jackson also provided his own explanation for why AutoNation and TrueCar went their separate ways, mentioning that TrueCar previously generated 3 percent of the dealer group's leads.

"We were operating under a contract that had acceptable terms," Jackson said. "That contract expired at the end of February, beginning of March. TrueCar had demanded in the new contract that we give them all our customer information. In (the) old contract, we gave TrueCar no customer information. This is an unprecedented demand.

"I don't know what company gives 100 percent of their customer information," Jackson continued. "I think it also, if we said yes, definitely would have created privacy issues that would have been cumbersome for us to implement."

Jackson went on to say that he believes his company's brand is strong enough to push forward without the leads generated by TrueCar.

"We think our brand is strong enough, our digital capabilities are strong enough that we will be fine," Jackson said. "And TrueCar is now in our rearview mirror."