Many Android based smartphones with features similar to the iPhone 6 and 6s are available on world markets at much cheaper prices. This is due in part to the fact that Qualcomm and some other chip suppliers offer a combined system on chip that includes both the modem and the processor. Apple designs its own processor and relies (so far) on modem chips supplied by Qualcomm. Two separate chips are neither price competitive, nor do they use as little power as a combined system on chip. This is going to give Apple some future problems unless they start using combined chips. The alternative, of course, is to do what they've been doing and thus risk lowering their profit margins, which are already the highest in the industry.
My Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge costs no more than the iPhone 6s, but it performs most tasks better. I added 64 GB flash memory in the slot provided by Samsung, at a cost of $22, giving me a phone considerably less expensive than the 6s with less built-in memory. Samsung phones aren't exactly low cost, but my point is, why would someone willing to use Android phones, some of which cost less than half the price of a 6s, want to pay more?
More broadly speaking, this is an example of what I have previously called the Pierce-Arrow syndrome. Pierce-Arrow, back in the 1920s, was considered absolutely the best luxury car available anywhere. They outsold Cadillac. If you wanted a Pierce-Arrow, you paid what the dealer charged; no price negotiations. The dealers would tell you that even if you didn't like the price, you'd be back because their car was better than anyone else's. Oh, did I mention that Pierce-Arrow went out of business about 1936?
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