Offering more context on just how strong the certified pre-owned sales total has been, Autodata Corp. said in an updated sales report and analysis that last month’s CPO sales total was a January record.

And as hot as the new-car market has been — Autodata said it climbed 13.7 percent year-over-year with 1.15 million sales in January — the CPO segment actually rose more rapidly to start 2015.

There were 194,861 CPO sales for the month, according to updated figures released by Autodata. This beat year-ago figures by 17.2 percent, despite trailing December numbers by 3.7 percent.  

The daily selling rate was 7,495 in January, up 12.7 percent year-over-year, Autodata indicated. 

So, at least in the year’s first month, 2015 appears like it will be another scorcher — and record-breaker — for CPO sales.

And about a week before the month ended, Cox Automotive chief economist Tom Webb said during a NADA Convention & Expo press conference that he was confident CPO sales will break a record for the fifth straight year.

“I can confidently predict that because the growing off-lease volumes create both the need and the ability to make these programs go higher,” Webb said. “With respect to this relationship between CPO and leasing, No. 1, as you can well imagine, an off-lease unit is an ideal candidate to go in a CPO program.”

Stay tuned to Tuesday’s CPO Weekly for a breakdown of how domestic and import automakers fared in the certified market during the month.