The guitar is often perceived as a male-dominated instrument, but women have long flocked to the six-string, and it turns out that this is a pretty significant demographic: Leading guitar maker Fender recently revealed that according to a new study, women make up about half of their guitar sales. While this data only accounts for sales of Fender guitars, Fender is the top acoustic and electric guitar brand in the world (with a 37.2 percent market share as of 2017), so it’s safe to say that their data is at least somewhat reflective of guitar buyers as a whole.
Fender CEO Andy Mooney told Rolling Stone that these numbers are similar in the UK, and that it’s not all because of Taylor Swift’s influence:
“The fact that 50 percent of new guitar buyers in the UK were women was a surprise to the UK team, but it’s identical to what’s happening in the US. There was also belief about what people referred to as the ‘Taylor Swift factor’ maybe making the 50 percent number short-term and aberrational. In fact, it’s not. Taylor has moved on, I think playing less guitar on stage than she has in the past. But young women are still driving 50 percent of new guitar sales. So the phenomenon seems like it’s got legs, and it’s happening worldwide.”
Revisit our recent Celebration Rock podcast episode with Courtney Barnett — one of the finest guitarists we have, female or otherwise — here.
