They don't sell.
Apple killed the iPhone mini due to low sales. Asus replaced the universally lauded Zenfone 10 with a very large Zenfone 11. Google increased the size of the Pixel 6 when compared to its predecessor. Sales also increased.
I wonder if to some extent they're not different enough. The iPhone mini has a 5.4" screen. Not so long ago we managed well enough with 4" iPhone screens. I wonder how a 4.5" version would sell - call it the iPhone Nano.
Unfortunately a lot of apps don't support those smaller screen sizes so well anymore. But people who want a small phone that's easy to carry around, who won't be using it for hours a day, don't always need many apps.
Somewhere there's gotta be numbers that show "there are people who buy minis, but they only buy a phone every few years, so let's make a mini every third model year" or something.
This isn't an answer, unless you believe it's impossible to make more than one size of phone at a time.
I specifically asked what might be pushing manufacturers toward such a viewpoint. How does the existence of an iPhone mini reduce total iPhone sales?
If you're an Apple user, would you switch to Android just to get a smaller phone? Or would you just bite the bullet and get the larger iPhone after the mini is discontinued? Apple knows that 99.99% of Apple users are in the second group.
I would never be an Apple user.
And that's relevant here, because this argument doesn't apply to Android users, and yet Android phone manufacturers are just as insistent on not making smaller phones.
> It costs a lot of money to make multiple versions of something, compared to having just one version.
Oh? Ballpark it for me.