You can’t win a game in the first quarter, but it never hurts to have a hot start. And that’s exactly what the auto auction market did to begin the year.

Wholesale auction sales volume in the first three months of 2024 represents the strongest first quarter in four years, according to AuctionNet data from the National Auto Auction Association shared exclusively with Auto Remarketing.

There were 1.7 million units sold at auction in Q1, which beats year-ago figures by 7%, NAAA said in its monthly analysis.

In March, there were 582,956 units sold at auction, down 4% year-over-year and up 1% from February. But take that dip from a year ago with some context.

“Sales volume remained robust however, reaching nearly 583,000, with the negative prior year comparison due more to last March’s strong 607,500 unit tally rather than a material erosion in sales this year,” NAAA vice president of Auction Data Solutions/AuctionNet Larry Dixon said in the commentary.

Breaking it down by seller type, sales from dealers was up 3% from February, the third consecutive month-over-month gain. Sales from commercial consignors were down 2% month-over-month, but are showing some major improvement from 2023.

Dixon notes that, “despite three straight month-over-month increases, dealer sales over the quarter were down 5.4% versus Q1 2023, while commercial sales were up nearly 28% compared to last year.”

In Q1, dealers had a 54% share of auction sales volume, with commercial consignors at 46% (excluding other sale types like salvage), according to the NAAA data.

There has also been improvement across all vehicle age bands, with 11-year and older units having the strongest gains in Q1 (up 11% year-over-year). Sales of vehicles up to 3-years-old and sales of vehicles between 4- and 10-years-old were each up 5%, respectively, according to the data.

Battery-electric vehicle sales still represent a small portion of the overall auction market (1.4% share in Q1), but their numbers are improving.

There were 8,990 auction sales of BEVs in March, beating year-ago figures by 78.1%. Through three months, there have been more than 23,000 sales of BEVs at auction, which is 83% higher than Q1 2023.

More details from NAAA’s AuctionNet data can be found below.

Note: This is part of a new monthly series in which Auto Remarketing shares AuctionNet data and commentary provided by the National Auto Auction Association.

As noted by the organization, more than 260 NAAA member auctions power AuctionNet, making it the most comprehensive source of wholesale auto auction sales data in the U.S. Unless otherwise noted, auction sales figures are based on total reporting auctions, the number and composition of which may vary over time.