There were 8.51 million tablets shipped in Japan in 2016, decreasing 9.8% on year, and marking the first annual decrease, according to Japan-based MM Research Institute.

Apple occupied 41 of the shipments, followed by Huawei Technologies (21.6%), NEC/Lenovo (8.5%) and Asustek Computer (5.4%).

For business-use tablets, enterprises have to bear costs of adjusting interfaces, adding software applications and designing security mechanisms. Therefore shipments of such tablets in Japan have been disappointing.

The education segment is likely to be the source of growth in Japan's tablet market.