Apple offers the ability to buy the iPhone with $0 down over (IIRC) 24 months—making that iPhone SE cost ~$21/month.
It has nothing to do with the contract discounts that phone providers used to offer.
It has a lot to do with that. Many US providers offer significant discounts on iPhones when buying them on a (new or renewed) contract. This was a very commonplace thing in Europe as well, but I believe it's become less common.
Installment payments change nothing about the base price.
But they still make it much more accessible to buy an iPhone for someone who doesn't have €500 or $1000 or whatever at one time to comfortably spend on one.
The idea that iPhones could be a meaningful "status symbol" by this point in their lifetime, given all the ways one can obtain one cheaply if that is what one wants, and the percentage of people who own them, just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. It's a meme repeated by people who need some reason to believe that people don't buy Apple's products on their own merits—much like the idea that it's a "cult".
Financing doesn't make anything cheaper relative to its alternatives (given that they can also be financed).
Which even in Sweden (one of the most expensive countries in Europe) is often as low as a lunch for two: https://www.tre.se/handla/mobiltelefoner/apple/iphone-15
> What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (~1 year old, EUR ~300-350)?
There might not be, which doesn't make iPhone a "status symbol among the middle class and richest people in the EU". It's literally just a phone.
This is not (anymore) how people buy their phones in many countries. Even on relatively expensive post-paid plans in some European countries, you don't get a discounted phone anymore: All they offer is an interest-free installment plan.
> iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android
What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (~1 year old, EUR ~300-350)?
The iPhone SE (2022) is twice as old and starts at EUR 500.