> As an Android OEM they'd have zero chance in the Asian market due to cost/features

This is completely wrong.

The Asian Market is far more diverse than that.

The Nokia brand was extremely strong.

The Asian market was and is very capable of supporting high end phones. It’s a smaller percentage of the market than in the west, but the entire market is also a lot bigger, so the absolute size of the Asian high end phone market is not far off from either the U.S. or European high end phone markets.