More than a million new-car intenders this year will likely opt for a used vehicle instead, according to CNW Research, which said that taking the certified pre-owned route could be a very popular choice among these consumers.

Of course, the pipeline of off-lease vehicles is a vital piece to maximizing CPO potential, and that requires some strategizing by dealers and automakers, alike, says CNW.

“For automakers, the drive to add more vehicles to their growing and profitable CPO fleet relies on having a major in-sourcing of off-lease vehicles,” said CNW president Art Spinella in the latest Retail Automotive Summary from the firm.

“That means more lease incentives, more advertising money spent on CPO units and giving dealers added incentives to sell CPOs,” he continued. “Dealers, recognizing the potential, are upping trade-in values by as much as 15 percent for cars and trucks that they consider to be ‘certifiable.’”

Over at Toyota, Robert Larson — the retail sales and operations manager for the company’s TCUV/TRAC programs — shared just how pivotal the off-lease channel is to the brand’s CPO success.

The Toyota CPO program moved 184,951 units in the first half of the year, which is a 12.8-percent year-over-year increase and puts the brand on a record pace. Larson attributes part of that success to lease return volume.

“We are having a record year in TCUV sales as a result of strong dealer engagement and fantastic availability due to the large number of lease maturities this year,” he said.

It’s plausible, if not likely, that other automakers are experiencing the same phenomena this year, as the certified industry barrels toward a third consecutive year of record sales, as statistics from Autodata Corp. suggest.

Edmunds.com projected last year — as readers may recall — that the number of lease returns for full-year 2013 was likely to climb by nearly half-a-million units year-over-year. Edmunds was forecasting more than 2.5 million leases to reach end-of-term in 2013, which would be the highest number of lease terminations since 2010

Edmunds confirmed this month that it is still holding that projection, and its chief statistician, Ray Zhou, added: “The increased lease return will add some pressure on used-vehicle prices and help both new- and used-vehicle sales.”

In the CPO slice of that used market pie, sales are also on pace to show an upswing for the fourth straight year. Interestingly enough, this parallels the aforementioned switch-over trend among new-car buyers that CNW has spotted for several years.

“For many new-car intenders, a switch in thinking and home-centric economics drives them to the used-car market. In fact, about 60 percent of consumers and small businesses who purchased a certified pre-owned vehicle were originally planning on acquiring a new model rather than used,” Spinella noted.

In the 1990s, the proportion of new intenders opting for a used car trended downward, he further explained. That started to change in 2005, however.

Spinella said that, at that time, the percentage of new shoppers going for used “appeared to begin a slight upward movement or flat, at best, in the two to three percent range.”

And then the recession hit.

“The recession changed not only the buying pattern, but also the mindset of vehicle shoppers,” Spinella noted. “Beginning in 2009, the upward trend mirrored the ‘90s downward movement with each succeeding year seeing more new intenders electing to buy used.”

This growth, he emphasized, parallels what has happened in the certified market, which has exploded in recent years and continues to flourish at historic levels.

Looking at historical numbers from Autodata published previously in Auto Remarketing, certified sales were down year-over-year in 2009, but have shown growth every year since. That includes two straight years of record numbers and what's almost certain to be a third consecutive best-ever sum in 2013.

“During the first six months of 2013, nearly six percent of new intenders have moved to the used-car column,” Spinella said. “For full-year 2013, in hard numbers, that translates into more than 1.2 million potential new-car buyers switching to used. And the bulk of those are selecting one- to five-year-old models.”

That age group, of course, comprises much of the target range for certified programs.

And consider this nugget Spinella mentioned later that underscores the importance of off-lease units in the CPO pipeline: “About 98 percent of used-vehicle shoppers, including those who have dropped out of the new-car market, say they would definitely consider an off-lease certified model. That figure has been growing steadily over the past decade.”

Joe Overby can be reached at joverby@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.