CARY, N.C. -
Like the glory days of UCLA men’s basketball — where the Bruins’ string of consecutive NCAA championships was snapped by N.C. State in the 1974 semifinals, only for UCLA to win it all again the following year — sometimes a streak might end and then pick right back up where it left off.
 
That appears to be the case in the used-car market these days. 
 
With 2.80 million sales of certified pre-owned vehicles, 2019 was the ninth consecutive record year. 
 
That streak was ended in 2020 by a pack of economic upheavals caused by COVID-19 pandemic, but the CPO market is back on track, and actually ahead of where it was two years ago. 
 
Through five months of the year, there have been 1,224,522 certified vehicle sales, according to a Cox Automotive analysis of Motor Intelligence data.
 
That’s 247,189 more CPO sales than there were in the first five months of 2019 — which, again, ranks as the strongest year ever, Cox said in the Data Point report.
 
That’s a 25.3% uptick. 
 
And the current year-to-date tally beats year-ago figures by 25%, as well. 
 
As for the most recent month, there were 268,452 CPO sales in May, which beat May 2020 figures by 13% and April figures by 4%, Cox said, citing Motor Intelligence.
 
What’s more, May’s CPO sales were 16,589 units stronger than the May 2019 tally. 
 
Looking at the overall used-car market, despite record-high wholesale prices and limited supply, used-car sales continued to gain traction in May.
 
Cox Automotive said in a June Data Point report that there was a 3% year-over-year hike in used-car sales during May.
 
The total used-vehicle SAAR was an estimated 41.0 million in May, steady with April and up from 39.9 million in May 2020, Cox said.
 
Looking at sales specific to dealerships (and taking private-party sales out of the equation), Cox said the retail SAAR for used-car was an estimated 22.4 million in May, again steady with April.
 
In May 2020, the retail used-car SAAR was 21.1 million.
 
In late May, TrueCar was forecasting that the month’s used-vehicle sales would end up beating year-ago figures by 13% and besting April’s total by 4%.
 
The firm was projecting that once final numbers were tallied, there was likely to have been 4.0 million used-car sales in May.