The Commerce Department said sales crept up 0.5 percent in line with expectations, from a revised declines of 0.2 percent in April and 1.2 percent the previous month.

The monthly retail sales data highlight the direction of consumer spending, a key motor of the world's largest economy, which normally drives two-thirds of output.

Some of the boost came from gasoline sales, which rose 3.6 percent. Excluding this component, retail sales were up 0.2 percent.

Even though the 0.5 percent May gain following two monthly drops reflects a stabilization in the trend in consumer spending, analysts caution that it may be too early to project growth in the months ahead amid rising unemployment.

"It would be very premature, however, to expect an uptrend in retail sales over the months ahead given declining payrolls and weakening wage gains," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

He said that retail data overall presented few major surprises relative to what was built into market expectations for the economy.

One key factor was that auto sales did not add more to the May increase, analysts said.

"Auto sales rose only 0.5 percent, much less than implied by the unit sales data from the automakers and not enough to drive a wedge between the headline and ex-autos numbers," said chief US economist for High Frequency Economic, Ian Shepherdson.

High Frequency Economic’s measure of core sales, which excludes autos, gas and food, rose only 0.1 percent, after a 0.1 percent dip in April.

"The trend seems to be more or less flat, which is better than a decline but is hardly a green shoot," Shepherdson said.

"Consumers are now under pressure from rising gas prices; expect no near-term improvement in core sales," he warned.

After a big drop in U.S. crude reserves and as the International Energy Agency jacked up its global demand estimate for the first time in months, oil prices hit eight-month highs Thursday, going over 72 dollars in New York.