Epiphone is under the Fender Label, but I’d say it belongs under a Mattel product line. I know because I had one in high school and it’s by far my worst guitar ever.
Respectfully, Fender is a completely different company, located in California.
Fender is the company that probably should have been pointed to as Gibson's principal competitor, not C.F. Martin.
Gibson's primary product is electric guitars - its most famous being the Les Paul, SG, and the ES line.
Fender's famous products are the Stratocaster and the Telecaster.
Gibson goes to Asia for its lower-level line, and calls it "Epiphone."
Fender makes its lower-level line in Mexico and still calls it Fender. (Fender used to make its low-end guitars in Japan; there are still Fenders made in Japan for the Asian market, but they're not considered low-end).
No, Epeiphone is owned by Gibson since they bought them back in the 50s or 60s. Squier is the Fender equivelent. Actually I've owned a lot of Epis of over the years and they have all been good insturments. The old USA made Epis were almost equal to Gibsons (John Lennon used to use an Epiphone ES330). The new ones are not quite as good but still nice insturments. I recently sold my 2002 Korean made Epi Les Paul Standard, and it was a nice guitar. The Alinco pickups were not quite as good as the ones on Gibsons, and there are some other shortcuts that they take like using veneers on their flame tops instead of solid wood, but they are still good guitars.
Squiers go from cheap to pretty good, depending on the model. Even the cheap ones are far, far better than the cheap guitars when I was starting out back in the 60s. I also own a Squier standard strat. It plays very nice. I replaced the crappy electronics with a quality prewired pickguard, and it plays and sounds great.