But isn't it just a matter of time til the novelty of smart phones wear of, they stop being tres chic and the cheap ones becoming 'good enough'? It might have taken decades, but eventually Ford bought Cadillac, Fiat bought Ferrari, VW bought Porsche (and Bugatti and a few more).
Big difference is Ford, VW, et al had local dealer networks that not only fixed the cars, but turned the lessons and data learned in the fixing back into engineering improvements upstream. The net result of this is over a span of years Ford and VW buyers would see the product get better each time they bought a new one.
Android will always be a low budget product as a market, because it's run by Google. Google doesn't care about its customers at all, but for the data they generate and its impact on ad sales.
Every time a user opens the Google app store, they can expect it to be worse than the time they opened it previously. Every time an Android user buys a new device, it's a crap shoot what sort of hardware issues it will have, even if it's Google or Samsung branded.
> Apple dominates the global handset market by capturing 66% of industry profits and 32% of the overall handset revenue.
Samsung and Huawei are second and third with about 20% and 10%, respectively. The three companies combine for about 95% of the profits.
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-gl...
In the same quarter, Apple had 12% of the global market sales, against 21% by Samsung and 18% by Huawei. They combine for 51% of the sales.
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share...
So, that quarter, companies representing half of the worldwide cellphone sales combined for 5% of the profit.
Apple sold 12% of the phones and captured 32% of the revenue but 66% of the profit.
Apple is clearly able to sell its phones at a unique premium; I am not sure of a better way to measure "attractive".