"Apple is a status symbol" - I wonder where in the world that is true. Certainly not the case for Canada/US/Singapore - an iPhone is just another smart phone.
Also, my impression from conversations with them over the years: The kids who were the youngest when they got cell phones, e.g., fifth grade or younger, got iPhones.
talked to kids and minors? hipsters and millenials? people that do all their computing on their phones? the multitude of people that watch apple keynotes, youtube product reviews, etc?
anything besides your gut feeling?
Smartphones are so saturated in this city, with close to 90%+ of people glued to them on the MRT, that absolutely nobody pays any attention to what model somebody is using.
This is totally unlike what my experience was like in the Bay Area, 2009-2011, in which every time I picked up a new iPhone, everyone (Restaurants, work, friends) was all over the new phone, asking to check it out, see how light it was, etc, etc...
Now it's just a rectangular hunk of glass.
Your basic question, though, is a good one - how the iPhone / Galaxy / etc.. is seen as a status symbol, and how that might have changed over time.