German auto giant Volkswagen said on May 14 that its passenger car sales in the first four months of 2013 rose 5.3 percent, thanks to strong demands from China and North America.

The Wolfsburg-based automaker sold 1.91 million passenger vehicles from January to April globally, compared with the sales of 1.81 million cars during the same period last year.

During the same period, deliveries in China grew year on year by 20 percent to 783,900 vehicles.

"Overall, the brand recorded a modest increase in worldwide deliveries as a result of its convincing model range. The signals from China, where Volkswagen has been successfully selling vehicles for the last 30 years, continue to be positive," said Christian Klingler, Board Member for Sales and Marketing for the Volkswagen Group.

China has become Volkswagen's largest market. Among all its passenger cars in the Asia Pacific region in the period ending in April, 91.7 percent were sold in China.

During the same period, sales in Europe dropped 7.5 percent year on year to 545,300 vehicles. There was also a downward trend in Germany, where customers bought 180,500 new vehicles, which was 10.9 percent less than in the previous year.