So, by all accounts, the iPhone mini has been an extremely slow seller.
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
Why would that form factor succeed in the Android space?
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I see these meme on tech sites all the time: “oh phones are too big I just want something simple”. That is a valid sentiment that I think is shared by basically no average consumer. For a lot of people, phones are their primary computing devices, so a big screen is nice there. Bigger phones allow for more battery capacity. Aging populations like them because you can use screen zoom features to really blow up that text size without making the effective viewport too small.
And…people just like big stuff. I know that’s simplistic and a little condescending, but then look at SUV and truck sales.
This narrative is cited a lot, and fueled rumors that Apple would kill the mini for iPhone 13. They didn't. So clearly it's profitable enough for them even though it's a comparatively low-volume product.
I think the issue with small form factor on Android is whether too many apps will have broken UI on such a small screen. Software support has been the issue with other innovative android phones, such as the LG Wing and even the original Samsung Fold.
Apple plans pretty far ahead and moves slowly. When a phone goes on sale (like the iPhone 12 mini) the successor is already pretty far along in the pipeline, and I think it's unlikely they would cancel the successor based on a few weeks of sales data. They would at least wait until after christmas, at which point the 13 mini was probably already almost ready, at which point it probably doesn't make sense to cancel it anymore.
So if Apple nixes a product because it lacks demand, I would expect that to be after two years of sales. The decision might have been made already after the first year of iPhone 12 mini, but the decision would not affect the iPhone 13 lineup, only the iPhone 14 lineup.
You could see this slow product cycle when Apple failed to jump on the big phone trend. When the iPhone 5 came out, they underestimated the market for huge phones, and it took them two years to course correct and jump on the phablet bandwagon with the 6/6+. (And they had a phantastic quarter when they did since everyone has been waiting for a big iPhone for two years)