FRANKFURT — Global car sales at BMW AG and Volkswagen AG's Audi brand rose to monthly records in May, putting the world's two best-selling luxury-car makers on course for another bumper year as mass-market rivals in Europe remain under pressure.

"The current order intake proves that the first half of the year will exceed our expectations in all regions," Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer said Monday.

"We have therefore now set ourselves a new target of 1.4 million deliveries for the year as a whole," Mr. Schwarzenbauer said. That figure is a more precise and upbeat full-year outlook than Audi's previous guidance, which projected overall car-market growth of at least 4 percent this year.

Audi narrowed the gap to market leader BMW in May, after overtaking Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand as the world's No. 2 luxury-car maker by vehicle sales last year, reported The Wall Street Journal. Audi's sales rose almost 14 percent to 128,900 cars last month, compared with a 6.6 percent increase to 129,150 cars at BMW's namesake brand.

In the first five months of 2012, Audi's sales rose 12 percent year-to-year to 600,200 cars. The BMW brand sold 607,207 vehicles world-wide, up 9.3 percent.

Global luxury-car sales have been largely unaffected so far by swirling economic concerns in Europe as governments have reduced public spending to try to bring their finances under control, damping overall demand for new cars. European auto-makers association ACEA warned last week that the market would shrink about 7 percent this year.

The contracting market is posing a significant problem for mass-market manufacturers with a strong reliance on European sales, such as PSA Peugeot-Citroën SA and Renault SA of France, Fiat SpA of Italy and the Opel/Vauxhall division of U.S.-based General Motors Co.

"Our growth in Europe continues to clearly buck the market trend, with especially stable development in Germany and the U.K.," Mr. Schwarzenbauer said. He added that Audi is targeting annual sales records in both markets this year.

China has been the primary growth driver for global premium auto makers in recent months, followed by robust demand in the U.S.

Audi and BMW gave no hints that they expect the luxury-car boom to end any time soon.

"New products such as the BMW 6-series Gran Coupe, which we launched on June 1, as well as the new BMW 7-series, will continue to drive momentum," said BMW sales chief Ian Robertson. "We are well on our way to achieving a new all-time high for sales in the year 2012."

The Munich-based company is benefiting from a fresh lineup, including new versions of high-volume models such as the compact 1-series and the 5-series.

The revamped 5-series accounted for 32,236 car sales in May, up 22 percent year-to-year. Sales of the five-door BMW 1-series hatchback surged 59 percent to 14,748 cars. The new three-door version of the 1-series will be introduced in September along with a new generation of the 3-series Touring model.

Sales at BMW's Mini brand improved 5.5 percent to 27,527 vehicles in May, driven by a 40 percent sales jump in China to 2,315 cars. The U.S. continued to be the brand's largest single market, with 6,153 cars sold last month, up 6.1 percent.

Mini-brand sales totaled 119,532 vehicles for the first five months of 2012, up 7.9 percent from the year-earlier period.

Last week, Mercedes-Benz said it sold 113,136 cars world-wide in May, a 4 percent rise from the same month in 2011. Year-to-date, the company based in Stuttgart, Germany, posted an 8.4 percent rise in sales to 531,382 vehicles. Mercedes-Benz lost some ground to its rivals in the crucial Chinese market in recent weeks due to limited availability of a new generation of the company's B-Class amid a model changeover.