The volume of shipments for the Japan mobile device market is expected to temporarily drop to 55.1 million units in 2014, resulting in a year-over-year decline of 2.1%, according to IDC.
The market includes PCs, smartphones, tablets and data communication products such as mobile cards and personal routers.
IDC said in a report smartphone shipments will drop 1% to 30 million units. The decline will mainly be due to lower sales of Android-powered smartphones caused by the three major carriers' promotional focus on the iPhone and slower new subscriber growth, particularly among consumers.
The commercial PC market is expected to decline 16.9% following some special demand brought about by Windows XP migrations in 2013.
In contrast, the tablet market, which remains very healthy in both the commercial and consumer segments, will grow 18.3% to about 9.4 million units.
Despite the decline in 2014, IDC Japan expects the total mobile device market will grow over the next five years, reaching 62.6 million units in 2018. This will be largely driven by sales of smartphones and tablets, which are expected to expand to 36.9 million and 10.2 million units respectively.