I live in one of these countries. There are lots of people who earn a lot less than 12k/yr but buy brand new iPhones. Why? Because their resale value is awesome. They lose very little value over the years, because a lot of people want to own one, so even used ones retain value. Even if it's something old like an iphone 6 or something like that.

If you buy an android phone, chances are you're going to sell it for a lot less than you got it for unless you're talking about a flagship that's not too old.

If I was earning 10k a year, I wouldn't want to buy an apple device new. A good return too would be incredibly expensive.