CARY, N.C. -

It was a record half and a record quarter for Kia certified pre-owned

Moving just under 40,000 units, Kia Motors America said the first half of the year represented its best six months ever for CPO sales. More specifically, Kia sold 39,799 certified vehicles in the first six months of 2017, beating year-ago figures by 7.8 percent, according to Autodata Corp.

While June sales were down 13.8 percent at 6,385 units (per Autodata statistics), Kia said the 20,346 CPO vehicles it sold from April through June marked its best quarter ever for certified.

The company said the second-quarter was driven by double-digit-percentage gains for its Cadenza, K900, Sportage and Sedona models.

“Kia is enjoying a terrific year for Certified Pre-owned vehicle sales. Kia has gained market share and is outperforming some of its big-name competitors,” Autotrader executive analyst Michelle Krebs said in the Kia news release.

“As its off-lease vehicles return to the market, Kia is in a strong position to maintain its momentum,” Krebs said. 

Industry-wide CPO sales were down a bit year-over-year in June, but year-to-date sales still beat the first-half totals from a record 2016.

According to Autodata, there were 221,853 CPO sales last month, which was down 0.8 percent from June 2016.

Through six months, there have been 1.34 million certified sales, up 1.2 percent from last year’s pace.