In the first half of the year, certified pre-owned sales represented more than 18 percent of franchised dealers’ used-vehicle sales, according to the latest Pulse report from ADESA Analytical Services.

The report, citing its own statistics and those from Autodata Corp., indicates the 18.5-percent share is up from the 16.9 percent of franchised used sales that CPO commanded in the first half of 2014.

Certified vehicles also represented 9.8 percent of retail used sales through the second-quarter, compared to 8.9 percent a year ago.

“Certified pre-owned vehicles have been a particular bright spot in the retail channel and have supported used-vehicle values in the wholesale channel as supply has grown,” Tom Kontos, the executive vice president of ADESA Analytical Services, wrote in the introduction to the report that was shared at last week's NAAA Convention in Orlando, Fla. 

Granted, the most recently available monthly CPO sales data from Autodata showed a decrease during the month of August.

However, that was the first year-over-year dip in monthly CPO sales since June 2014. And year-to-date sales through eight months were still more than 10 percent ahead of the 2014 pace.

Not to mention, four brands posted best-ever sales results in August, those being Nissan, Infiniti, Mini and Porsche, according to Autodata.

Specifically, there were 220,416 certified sales in August, which was off 1.1 percent from August 2014, according to Autodata’s roundup. There was one less selling day in August of this year. The daily selling rate for this most recent month (8,478) beat the year-ago figure by 2.7 percent.

And through eight months, CPO sales have reached 1.72 million units, which is a 10.4-percent improvement over the year-ago time frame.