Outside the US the iPhone is not a common choice. It does exist, but most people don't have one. This makes Apple's social lock-in markedly less effective.
I don't think most people have iPhones in the US.
While in RoW iPhones are definitely luxury items, by this very property about half (or more) of people whose decisions matter would have one, and you often wouldn’t want to use technology that doesn’t work on your bosses’ phone.
Is this a troll? You think half of the world's decision makers are in the US?
I think he meant that in 3-rd world countries iPhones are luxury items bought by rich people in position of power.
You might well be right on both items, but see the comment below by spatular for my intention.
(aside: is there a name for the extension of Hanlon's razor where one shouldn't attribute to stupidity a simple miscommunication?)
The us has half iPhones of China alone [0]. And America only contains 16% of the worlds iphones. So yes, America is not a big player when it comes to iPhone usage.