True. But you can get it from Huawei for $400 less than Apple.
Eventually people will decide that a US$200 Android phone will be good enough to check Facebook and realize they can spend the other US$650 that Apple would charge on other things.
People have been trotting that argument out for years when discussing Apple. First the Mac then the iPod (which was never really dethroned by a competitor and was cannibalised by Apple themselves with the iPhone). Most of Apple's product lines have\had way cheaper alternatives, but still do incredibly well for Apple. Just like the iPhone, which had record sales last quarter.
The bottom end is where the volume is in most markets - cars, fridges, watches etc. but for those that can afford it they can look beyond just price.
The reason I have slowly moved from Windows, Linux, Atari, Amiga, Android to Apple at home over the last few decades is more than just what the 1 device can do on paper. It's the entire ecosystem:
- Privacy
- Security
- Ongoing device updates
- Very little "maintenance" (reinstalls, AV, firewalls etc. etc.)
- Synergy, a big one for me, the way my watch, phone, tablet, laptop and media streramer all sync with each other and stay updated through iCloud
- In Store Support
- Resale value/lifetime cost of ownership (which thanks to the high resale value of Apple gear helps mitigate the steep entry level price)
For me Apple don't need to be the cheapest, they just need to keep providing me with an experience that I can't buy from anyone else and I'll continue to use them.
"Eventually people will decide that a US$200 Android phone will be good enough"
A lot of those people have already decided. iPhones have mostly sat around 15-17.5% market share for the last 7 to 8 years. Apple have never had a large market share with the iPhone. Symbian dominated then Android took over.
For the last quarter of 2016, "352 million devices sold ran Android (81.7 percent) and 77 million ran iOS (17.9 percent)":
https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016