There is no doubt that Apple has seen its share of successes in the last five years, with market leading products like the iPod and iTunes Music Store. This success has led the company to expand beyond the buildings in the vicinity of Apple’s Campus to a new 50-acre parcel of land elsewhere in Cupertino.
“What’s happened at Apple is that our business has basically tripled in the last five or six years. We’ve gone from 6 billion in sales to 20 billion in sales, basically,” Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, told the Cupertino City Council. “What that’s meant is that our head count in Cupertino has dramatically expanded.”
Jobs addressed the city council to let them know that Apple had already purchased nine separate properties totaling 50 acres in all. Jobs said that Apple planned to take down the existing buildings and put up “some more efficient structures.”
Jobs said that Apple had expanded beyond the campus at 1 Infinite Loop to 30 other buildings in the vicinity. Besides being inefficient, Jobs said that it was “inconvenient and frustrating for people.”
Industry analysts look to Apple’s recent earnings announcement for proof of the company’s growth. With the iPod being so successful for Apple over its life, see other Apple devices in the future would not be a surprise.
“Yesterday’s earnings says it all — Apple is growing like gangbusters,” said JupiterResearch analyst, Joe Wilcox. “The boost with iPod is not the only story going on at Apple — Mac sales are doing well for them too. The company has already expanded into new areas, so there is no reason to think that Apple will not expand into other devices and to try to gain more momentum in its core business.”
The design process for the campus will start in the next few months, but Jobs said he didn’t expect completion of the project for three to four years.
Jobs noted during the meeting that Apple had looked elsewhere for land that would have been a lot cheaper for the company to purchase, but opted to stay in Cupertino, the site of the company’s first, and current headquarters.
The historic Apple Campus that can be seen on a drive on the 280 in California is not going anywhere, according to Apple. There is no indication what business units the new campus will hold, but Jobs did say that “it’s gonna cost us more than we’d like, but hopefully in five years we’ll have forgotten about that and just have a nice campus, a second nice campus in Cupertino.”