This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago:
Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a physical keyboard.
There was plenty of evidence, surveys, market studies, trend predictions, devices for these "Messaging-centric" use-cases were always part of this market-demand roster.
But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
Every major vendor went through this cycle of learning that lesson, usually with an iteration like "it needs to be a premium high-spec device" --> (didn't sell) --> "ah, it should be mass-market" --> (also didn't sell).
You can find this journey for every vendor. Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, Sony.
The same lessons were already learnt for small-screen devices: There was a "Mini" series of Samsung Galaxy, LG G-series, HTC One, Sony Xperia. It didn't sell, the numbers showed that it didn't attract additional customers, at best it only fragmented the existing customer-base.
Source: I work in that industry for a long time now
My theory is that much of this effect is an error, or at least a far-less-than-ideal effort, on the part of the designers. Of course it’s hard to sell a low-end “mini” device with a worse camera, worse battery life, etc. But that’s not actually what I, or many people I discuss this with, want. I would happily buy a premium device that is short and narrow, and possibly even thicker as a tradeoff. There’s plenty of unexplored room in the design space here. For example: start with an iPhone Pro or whatever the Android equivalent du jour is. Keep the camera unchanged. Shrink the display but keep the same quality (at least equal pixel density). Now puff out the back so that the camera lenses are flat or even slightly recessed. Use the resulting added volume to compensate for the decrease in volume due to decreasing the other dimensions. Market the think as a Whatever Phone Pro Compact, and advertise clearly that the battery life is every bit as good as the non-Compact model version. Show off cool pictures models sticking this thing in their cool jeans pockets without them sticking out. Charge the same price as the ordinary Pro model.
As far as I know, no one has tried anything like this in recent memory. The iPhone 12 and 13 Mini were always marketed as the cheaper versions, and the cute little old SE model was very much a low-end version. Last I checked, there was no 5G Android device with similar dimensions from any manufacturer.
No, they were not. They were literally a scaled down version of their respective regular sized counterparts, the 13 Mini had the same cameras, SOC, memory, screen quality and storage options as the regular 13 [0], yet its sales success (or lack thereof [1]) was enough to instantly cure me of any previously held notions that there is a sufficiently large group of buyers for these devices out there.
It isn't because the specs are inferior, the cameras are changed, the display has a lower pixel density (the Mini actually had slightly higher ppi) or anything else. There simply is no sufficient market, the 13 Mini was the worst selling phone in that generation by a frankly impressive margin. 38% for iPhone 13 vs 3% for iPhone 13 mini, despite them being as close to just being scaled down and otherwise identical as one can make a phone speaks a very clear language that any manufacturer wanting to succeed has hear loud and clear. Most certainly why Asus has seized with their more compact smartphones. The amount of people I know that praised Asus for making a more compact flagship with a very large battery [2] was not in any way proportional to their sales. In this case, the battery life was actually superior to many larger competitors. Same for my Xperia 5 V, the compact phone I bought and used at the time, cause I walk my talk and have been following phone releases to a sufficient degree that I can assure everyone, there have been and are flagship speced, compact phones with good battery life, that no one ever buys. I'd love more options in the market, heck, I use both the Xperia 5 and an iPhone 15 Pro Max in a Clicks case, either for different situations, so am on both sides as a consumer. Simply, the lack of any actual market demand beyond online comments makes that impossible, we need to be honest here.
[0] https://www.apple.com/by/iphone-13/specs/
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
[2] https://www.asus.com/mobile-handhelds/phones/zenfone/zenfone...
Per my suggestion, Apple should have scrapped the 13 Mini completely and instead offered a 13 Pro Compact for $999. Or maybe even $1049 if it had a bigger battery than the standard Pro model. The profit would have been much higher per unit than the 13 Mini, and I imagine they might have sold more units as well.
I’m typing this on a 13 Mini, and I would have paid an extra $400 for a better camera and more battery life. Before I had this phone, I bought a 15 Pro, used it for a week, and returned it because it was uncomfortably large.
> Combined, all four iPhone 13 models made up 71 percent of iPhone sales, with the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 13 responsible for 38 percent of sales. The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max weren't quite as popular as the iPhone 13, but sold much better than the iPhone 13 mini.
In fact, the iPhone 13 alone sold more (38%) than the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max combined (30%). The plain old 13 was the most popular SKU, because no, most people do in fact not spend more for an added telephoto camera only a specific few have a true need for. The regular non Pro iPhone has across most years been the best seller, because it is a solid middle ground for the vast majority of people, making it the best basis for a small SKU to have any hope of succeeding. A 13 Pro Compact would have absolutely sold as poorly, maybe even worse than the 13 mini, considering both Pros did not outsell the regular 13 by itself. But even if a 13 Pro Compact had sold twice as well as the 13 mini (a very generous assumption considering it would have been 300usd more expensive), that would still be only 6% of total sales, a drop in the bucket.
Lastly, there are the Xperia 5s and there have been the Zenfones, both having better battery life than their large competitors, both being as (un)popular as Apples efforts.
Again, I like small smartphones, I'd love there to be a significant market for them. There simply is no way to look at the data and claim there is one beyond a tiny niche that a company such as Apple cannot realistically serve.
Apple tried converting their most successful SKU into a small smartphone. That failed to sell even a tenth of its large brother, despite being 100usd cheaper.
Sony literally scales their flagship down and gives it better battery life. Not really a success either.
ASUS made their own, fully dedicated line of compact smartphones which again, had better battery life than most large competitors and even included a 3.5mm jack, getting a second niche of customers to bolster sales. They too saw so few sales that they were forced to pivot to gigantic phones.
No matter what conditions, no matter how favorable, the same result.