CARY, N.C. -

Used-vehicle retail sales have continued tracking at an annual pace near 39 million units, according to a sales forecast released this week by Edmunds. 

The company is projecting 3.2 million used-car sales for October, which would be even with September.

The seasonally adjusted annualized rate for used sales in October would be 38.9 million units, up slightly from the 38.8 million-unit annual pace last month, Edmunds said.

In other analyses, Cox Automotive pegged the September used-car SAAR at 40.4 million, up from 38.1 million in August.

Through nine months of the year, used retail sales were beating year-ago figures by 2 percent, a Cox Automotive spokesperson said in an email earlier this month. The company is forecasting 39.1 million used retail sales for full-year 2017, he said.

In an analysis, Cox Automotive estimates that there was an 8-percent year-over-year hike for used-car sales in September. 

Additionally, Cox Automotive’s data shows a 5-percent increase year-to-date in sales of used cars less than 4 years old through September — and this group has the biggest share of the pre-owned market, the analysis indicates.

One slice of that later-model volume is certified pre-owned cars.

With the best third quarter ever and a sales increase of more than 6 percent in September, the certified pre-owned market passed the 2-million unit sales mark for the year, according to Autodata Corp. 

The market remains ahead of the 2016 pace by one percent, meaning another record year is likely in the works. 

Autodata said there were an estimated 221,902 certified vehicle sales in September, which beat year-ago figures by 6.6 percent.

This capped a record third quarter, where dealers moved 679,367 units.

In addition to besting Q3 2016 figures by 0.5 percent, it was the strongest third quarter on record and the second-best quarter ever for CPO sales, according to Autodata. 

The best?

The second quarter of 2017, which was 2.1-percent stronger than the most recent period.

With consecutive strong quarters on the books, the CPO market has now tallied 2.02 million sales for the year, which beats the first nine months of 2016 by 1.0 percent.