People in your area are very forthcoming. Not once have I ever heard someone vocalize that they bought an iPhone as a status symbol. “Easy to use”, “it’s what my friends use, and they like it”, but never “it makes me appear higher in the social strata”. They might think it, and I’m sure some do, but it’s not said out loud. Or maybe that’s not why the majority buy iPhones, dunno.
Good thing the US message color thing is isolated over there and the peer pressure on Gen Alpha hasn't reached us.
But yes, I stick to my claim. You don't have to hard press those people to tell you that they don't use phones "for poor people" . The idiom is local and used both ironically and literraly.
This might come as a shock to you, but people don't vocalize and share their desires and impulses on why they buy or do certain things, why they dress a certain way, why they sleep with certain people, etc. Apple's entire brand was built on being different and desirable at the lizard brain level.
In many parts of the world, people even take bank loans to buy iPhones simply because it's the device that all rich people, politicians, athletes, celebrities, influencers use. They don't buy based on the specs and reviews, they buy on what their lizard brain tells them, and no tech company does that better than Apple.
But someone that cares about watches knows whether you paid $5000 or $50000 for your Rolex just by looking.