Japanese guitar maker Fernandes declares bankruptcy due to plummeting sales
A lot of first guitars in Japan were made by Fernandes, a Saitama-based company that started in 1969 and grew to receive worldwide recognition. Their guitars were especially popular in the '90s, having been used by members of Metallica and Green Day, while in Japan, they were often held by guitarists in the visual kei genre of rock, including those from bands like X Japan and Buck-Tick.
By 1999, their sales were flying high at about four billion yen, but have been on a steady decline since and fell to 166 million yen ($1 million) in 2022, landing them about 24 million in the red. Despite some efforts to pull out of the slump, Fernandes finally had to file for bankruptcy in June of this year.
It's fair to say that times are tough for a lot of businesses these days, but the spectacular fall of Fernandes left many wondering what happened to cause it in online comments.
'There are just too many secondhand guitars on the market now. Plus, people don't even need instruments to make music anymore.'
'My first guitar was a Fernandes.'
'Sad… It's the end of an era.'
'Does anyone even buy instruments anymore?'
'Once visual kei went down in popularity, times got hard for them.'
'I bought a Fernandes bass and guitar because I loved Hide.'
'They're still great guitars. It's just the times have changed.'
'The policies of the LDP are making all kinds of great companies crash. They need to go.'
'Most people don't buy instruments anymore, and those that do can only afford one.'
'Notice how everyone is saying 'My first guitar was a Fernandes,' but not their second, third, or fourth…'
'People don't have the endurance to learn an instrument with all the instant gratification content out there.'
'The music industry is going down all over the world. It's all EDM now.'
What happened to Fernandes was most likely the result of how the company was run or, as one comment pointed out, the general economic conditions of Japan as a whole. It was also reported that the brand name was sold to another company, but it remains to be seen if that means future generations around the world will continue to pick up a Fernandes as their first guitar.
Source: Tokyo Shoko Research, My Game News Flash
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
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