How I stop iPhone from auto-formatting phone numbers entered into Contacts?

The iPhone is imposing phone number formatting based on the current country setting in ways that I do not want, and does not work consistently. The iCloud UI allows auto-formatting of phone numbers to be disabled. I want to disable auto-formatting on the iPhone Contacts application as well but cannot (this is terrible design and nonsensical inconsistency between what iCloud does and what the iPhone contacts app does).

Apple: are you listening?