BANDON, Ore. -

For franchised dealerships, June was a month of swarming trade-ins and solid growth in the used-car department, where sales climbed more than 4 percent year-over-year, according to CNW Research.

Firm president Art Spinella said Monday that franchised dealers sold 1.68 million used units in June for a 4.47-percent uptick, noting that these stores were “swamped with trade-ins.”

However, the industry itself was a bit slower for used sales than it was a year ago. Overall, there were 4.38 million sales, which was off 2.48 percent year-over-year.

In the latest Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, chief economist Tom Webb added some commentary on the sales data provided by CNW and explained the decline a bit.

“Sales for the first half of the year still showed a healthy 4.1-percent gain,” Webb emphasized. “The comparison against a year ago was distorted by last year’s production disruption that left dealers short of new-vehicle inventory and pushed substitute used-vehicle sales higher.

“The total new-to-used sales ratio was a high 4.3-to-1 in June of last year, and a more normal 3.4-to-1 this year,” he added.

The analysis from CNW shows the bulk of the decline in June was among independent dealers, whose used sales fell nearly 8 percent at 1.47 million units sold. Private-party sales dipped 1.21 percent at 1.22 million sold.

Overall, however, the appetite for used cars appears healthy. More than 12 million shoppers were browsing for used cars last month, which is a better picture than recent years have shown, CNW indicated.

“In all, there were 12.34 million used-car shoppers in June; about 2.8 per unit sold and a strong showing vis a vis recession-depressed 2009 through 2011,” Spinella shared.

What’s more, the industry also had the second-best month of all time for certified pre-owned sales in June, as dealers saw 162,165 of these units fly off the lots during the month, according to statistics from Autodata Corp. This sum was nearly a 9-percent increase from June 2011.