>I'm guessing they're mostly preying on people with upper-middle class incomes and massive amounts of status anxiety
Indeed, especially so if the culture around them promotes this type of anxiety. You'd be surprised by how many people living in big cities of the former Soviet Union purchase used Vertu phones or outright two-SIM fakes. A lot of cell phone repair kiosks, especially those specializing in Nokia phones, have a "Vertu Repair" sign hanging outside. Now that the iPhone is supplanting Vertu as a major status symbol this trend has been on a decline but the sings and the fakes are all still there.
On an semi-unrelated note, creating a no-nonsense port of CyanogenMod or, better yet, MUIU for Vertu phones might make for an amusing art project.
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>I'm guessing they're mostly preying on people with upper-middle class incomes and massive amounts of status anxiety
Indeed, especially so if the culture around them promotes this type of anxiety. You'd be surprised by how many people living in big cities of the former Soviet Union purchase used Vertu phones or outright two-SIM fakes. A lot of cell phone repair kiosks, especially those specializing in Nokia phones, have a "Vertu Repair" sign hanging outside. Now that the iPhone is supplanting Vertu as a major status symbol this trend has been on a decline but the sings and the fakes are all still there.
On an semi-unrelated note, creating a no-nonsense port of CyanogenMod or, better yet, MUIU for Vertu phones might make for an amusing art project.
Edit: formatting, typo.