“The average sell price is up from $663 to $738 year over year, indicating it’s the premium phones that are selling, and all the cheap vendors are getting shut out.”

Totally disagree with the article’s assumption, I’d say you are more correct. No one wants to or has that much money to pay for ridiculous prices, so sales are tanking. The few who can, or must buy a new phone certainly aren’t going to buy something with no staying power when hundreds of phone makers have coke and gone in the last decade.