BERLIN - Volkswagen has witnessed a slight improvement in car sales in May, the Wolfsburg-based company reported on Friday.

Volkswagen delivered 513,500 vehicles globally to customers last month, marking a 3.5 percent year-on-year increase.

"We have improved our roll-out in nearly all of our core markets," head of distribution Juergen Stackmann told the press.

The strongest gains were recorded in Eastern Europe and Latin America, although Volkswagen also performed strongly in more mature European markets.

In China, Volkswagen's single biggest market, year-on-year sales rose by 4 percent in May.

Nevertheless, Volkswagen still recorded a slight decline of 0.4 percent for the first five months of 2017 compared to the same period in 2017.