In the fourth quarter of 2014, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) sold 74.5 million iPhones, just 600,000 fewer than Samsung Electronics’ total of 75.1 million. A year ago Samsung sold over 33 million more smartphones than Apple in the fourth quarter. Apple’s sales rose 46% year-over-year and Samsung’s fell 11%.

It may seem impossible, but it is true, according to research firm IDC, which released the data on Thursday. Worldwide shipments of smartphones rose more than 26% annually, from 292.7 million in 2013 to 375.2 million last year.

Year over year, Samsung’s fourth-quarter shipment volumes dropped by 9.1 million units while Apple’s volumes rose by 23.5 million. And Apple was not the only beneficiary of the higher overall volumes and poor performance by Samsung.

Lenovo/Motorola sold 24.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, up from 19.5 million in 2013. Huawei sold 23.5 million compared with 16.6 million a year ago, and Xiaomi sales soared by nearly 180%, from a fourth-quarter 2013 total of 5.9 million to 16.6 million in the 2014 fourth quarter.

We noted yesterday that Samsung was getting squeezed at both the high and low ends of the smartphone market and here is just more evidence of that. An IDC executive almost gushed:

First, at a time when average selling prices (ASPs) for smartphone are rapidly declining, Apple managed to increase its reported ASPs in the fourth quarter due to higher-cost new models. Second, the growth of iPhone sales in both the U.S., which is considered a saturated market, and China, which presents the dual challenges of strong local competitors and serious price sensitivity, were remarkable. Sustaining this growth and higher ASPs a year from now could prove challenging, but right now there is no question that Apple is leading the way.

Samsung has jettisoned some models in an effort to streamline its product portfolio, but if the company wants to get its mojo back it is going to have to do something big. Fiddling around with menu choices is a good way to provoke big changes in a company’s management. Just ask the former CEO of McDonald’s.

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