Certified pre-owned (CPO) sales increased month over month but underperformed the overall used-vehicle retail market in August, Cox Automotive reported on Sept. 9.

August CPO sales rose to 211,609 units, up more than 5,000 units or a 2.6% increase over July. Year-over-year CPO sales decreased by nearly 11,000 units, or 5.1% lower than in August 2021.

Leveraging a same-store set of dealerships selected to represent the country from Dealertrack, Cox estimates that used retail sales increased 11% in August from July and that used retail sales were down 9% year over year. Compared to August 2019, sales were down 19%, which was an improvement from July, when sales were down 29%, based on the same-store results.

“While CPOs remain the next best alternative to new vehicles in this market, our current sales rate is, on average, 30,000 less per month than in 2019," said Chris Frey, senior manager of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive, in a news release. "Year-to-date CPO sales are down almost 16% through August. CPO sales are on track to finish near 2.4 million in 2022, down around 11% from last year’s 2.7 million.”