Apple has made a 98-acre land purchase that will roughly double the size of its home base in Cupertino, reports the "Silicon Valley Mercury News" (http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16706216?source=most_emailed&ncli...).

Apple's latest acquisition is the longtime campus of Hewlett-Packard, the article adds. HP announced over the summer that it planned to move out of that site, which it had occupied for decades, as it consolidates operations at its Palo Alto headquarters over the next two years.

The "Mercury News" says it's no surprise the company needs more room: in the past year, Apple reported $65 billion in sales and added 12,300 employees to its global work force of 46,600, many of them in Cupertino.

"They've just had spectacular growth," analyst Tim Bajarin, president of the consulting firm Creative Strategies, says. "They are one of the companies in the valley that are hiring, and the bottom line is they need the space."

Apple and HP declined to give the sale price or any specifics of the transaction, which was reported to the Santa Clara County Recorder's Office on Nov. 16. Local real estate experts said HP's asking price may have been $300 million or more, but they also said the final amount may have been less because of the sluggish commercial real estate market, says the "Mercury News."