BEIJING -- China's tablet computer shipments went down 3.4 percent year-on-year to approximately 7.05 million units in the third quarter of the year, according to an industrial report.

The decline narrowed from a 6.6-percent drop in the second quarter.

The better-than-expected performance is partly due to the growth of mainstream brands in the consumer market through technological innovation and product line expansion, according to the report released by the global market research firm International Data Corporation.

Despite the overall drop, tablet shipments of domestic brands, including Huawei, Xiaomi, and Vivo, logged an increase in the third quarter, the report said.

Shipments in the consumer tablet market dipped 4.3 percent year-on-year while that of the commercial tablet increased 7.4 percent from a year earlier, it said.

The report also revealed that the third quarter's average retail price of the Chinese tablet market decreased by 3 percent from the second quarter.