diff --git a/Lib/fontTools/ttLib/tables/_g_l_y_f.py b/Lib/fontTools/ttLib/tables/_g_l_y_f.py
index bbf8c93e5..784ebc43a 100644
--- a/Lib/fontTools/ttLib/tables/_g_l_y_f.py
+++ b/Lib/fontTools/ttLib/tables/_g_l_y_f.py
@@ -689,6 +689,10 @@ class Glyph(object):
 					len(data))
 
 	def decompileCoordinates(self, data):
+		# Slicing small bytes() object is faster than slicing memoryview;
+		# Cutoff empirically determined.
+		if len(data) >= 128:
+			data = memoryview(data)
 		endPtsOfContours = array.array("h")
 		endPtsOfContours.frombytes(data[:2*self.numberOfContours])
 		if sys.byteorder != "big": endPtsOfContours.byteswap()