CARY, N.C. -

After just narrowly notching another record year, sales of certified pre-owned vehicles climbed more than 5 percent in January.

The CPO market began 2018 with 203,024 sales last month, according to Autodata Corp. This was a 5.3-percent hike over January 2017 — although it was also an 8.2-percent decrease from December.

The Big 3 was the highlight of the month, with CPO sales up 16.9 percent from a year ago. Domestic-brand dealers combined to move 70,274 certified vehicles, according to Autodata.

That compares to a 2.2-percent spike for European-brand dealers, who sold 35,019 CPO cars.

Sales of Asian-brand certified units were down 0.8 percent at 97,731.

Autodata notes that with 25 selling days in January (versus 24 a year ago and 26 in December), the daily sales rate of 8,121 beat year-ago figures by 1.1 percent and was down 4.5 percent from December.

Last month, Cox Automotive economists said they are expecting approximately 2.7 million CPO sales in 2018, and if that comes to fruition, it will be the eighth straight year of record CPO sales.

According to Autodata., there was an estimated 2,645,718 CPO vehicles sold in 2017, compared to 2,642,986 sold in 2016.

That’s a gain of just 0.1 percent, but it was enough to bump certified sales to their best year on record.