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).
Mine is lowest of the lowest end, claimed to be Fender, it’s made in Mexico and says ‘epiphone’ somewhere. Maybe some kind of shenanigans. Thanks for this and #53, very interesting.
Know what? I’m maybe losing my memory already or I should have paid more attention back then. It says Epiphone, it also says Gibson, it’s no doubt way low end, and I better already don’t claim to know anything else about it. Maybe it wasn’t even real brand. But I clearly don’t remember owning a Gibson back then. Weird :P