The Nissan brand recently completed its best-ever month for certified pre-owned sales — and the program may not have even reached its peak yet.

According to Autodata Corp., there were 12,713 Nissan brand certified sales in May, which is nearly a 24-percent year-over-year increase. The CPO leadership for the automaker believes there is “potential to sell even more.”

“We are pleased with our all-time sales records for Nissan, and we have potential to sell even more,” Marty Gleason, senior manager of certified pre-owned at Nissan and Infiniti, told Auto Remarketing. “Our CPO program is one of the most competitive products in the market.

“It allows dealers to provide a customer with great value and the peace of mind that comes with a factory-backed warranty,” he continued. “Nissan is tracking well above the industry growth so far in 2014, and I anticipate this momentum will continue.”

The brand has moved 56,496 CPO vehicles through five months of the year, up about 20 percent from the same period of 2013, Autodata indicated.

Comparatively, the industry as a whole is up 10.6 percent year-to-date with 952,234 CPO sales through May, tracking toward another record year.

But May’s certified sales result wasn’t the only good piece of news on the pre-owned front for Nissan recently.

In the inaugural CarMax Used Car Shopping Report that was released earlier this month, the Nissan Altima was spotlighted as the model generating the most test drives and sales at CarMax.

“Consumers recognize the same appeal that makes Altima one of the best-selling new cars on the market. Altima provides a great combination of design, performance, fuel efficiency, technology and value,” Gleason said.

“Altima consistently ranks as one of the highest searched pre-owned cars on shopping sites like AutoTrader.com,” he added.

Not to mention, Gleason says the Altima is Nissan’s top-selling new and pre-owned model and commands a 30-percent share of the brand’s CPO sales mix.

“From a dealer’s perspective, the exciting part of Altima’s popularity is the retail traffic it drives. A high percentage of our CPO shoppers end up buying a new model.  Our motto is ‘Used drives new,’” he added.