But just because a company can issue a certain number of shares doesn't mean it will issue all of them to the public. Typically companies will, for many reasons, keep a portion of the shares in their own treasury. For example, company XYZ may decide to maintain a controlling interest within the treasury just to ward off any hostile takeover bids. On the other hand, the company may have shares handy in case it wants to sell them for excess cash (rather than borrowing).