To be fair, pop music charts are rarely guitar driven. Even in the 90s where we had this big rock revival it was Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney

To be fair, pop music charts are rarely guitar driven. Even in the 90s where we had this big rock revival it was Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, etc leading the charts most of the time. Remember, the Beatles were famously turned down in the early 60s because "Guitar groups are on their way out." Well, that was true as the charts had so few guitars and no one really saw 60's and 70's rock/folk/funk/psychedelia coming. Rock definitely is less popular now in the charts, but its worth mentioning that a lot of guitar-styles tend to get eaten up the whole Indie/DIY scene, which still has prominent guitar-work and rock-based styles. Again, perhaps not as much as the 90s, but the analysis above seems much more damning than it needs to be. I imagine Fender is unhappy with this anyway as Indie types are very much into buying used and vintage guitars, which means no profit margin for Fender. Fender sold a hypothetical guitar in 1975 and made, say, $25. They see nothing of a recent re-sale that can be thousands of dollars easy, perhaps even tens of thousands in rare cases. I think if companies like Fender want to survive they need to do what Apple did and make their own stores to sell their own brand and to sell/broker vintage fender guitars and amps.