I reckon at least as profitable (probably more) as every other forgettable model in the currently oversaturated market all trying to target the same segment in the race to the bottom.
We don't care about cameras or games or ai. We are happy with last years specs (or older). The after-sales-support, maintenance, updates can be offloaded to the community. Sales will probably be online and not in brick-and-mortar stores since it would be difficult to market to regular people. So Marketing budget can be minimal. Just do a couple of talks at foss events. It might not be the kind of phone that gets Marques BrownLee excited but the FOSS community (which still has clout and influence among tech-elites) will be more than happy to do the evangelism for a phone that is 100% open-source and doesn't spy on you. Since sales are online it could be a kick-starter or pre-orders in batches. So 100% cash upfront before production. It could even be the halo phone for the next phone unicorn startup (ala OnePlus).