The problem was that technological advances made this a very tough market. Nokia used to have a separate marque called Vertu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vert

The problem was that technological advances made this a very tough market. Nokia used to have a separate marque called Vertu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu) to serve this market. But rapid technological progress meant that next year's $300 phone is batter in most functional aspects as last year's $5000 luxury model, so even the very wealthy would probably prefer this year's iPhone 17 Air to last year's diamond-encrusted iPhone 16. The market might get revived when the tech improvement flattens flattens. like they did for cars.