Why "the chills?" I am thinking about a little scenario - somebody knocks at my door, I open, and I find out my new iPhone is ready. The only problem is that I don't want an iPhone. No problem - a gun to my head, a pen in my hand, and an offer I can't refuse in front of me, ready to be signed. Ta-taaa! Now, I am one of those many new iPhone owners! Don't take this seriously, I was just joking...after all, Apple is set to build 40 million iPhones a year, not 1 billion!
Hey, don't worry, it's "only" 40 million, so if you're working for one of Apple's competitors in the smartphone market, you won't lose your job...yet! Just think about the fact that the goal for the first year of existence of the iPhone was of about 11 million units, so going up to 40 million is nothing less but impressive.
This is no official statement, but sources from Foxconn, close to Apple's direct knowledge of build numbers, is claiming the facilities alloted to Apple's handset are already working "above current full capacity." If this proves to be true, we may get a lot of iPhones around pretty fast, and probably with more problems than before, but let's hope Apple will manage to keep quality and quantity in balance!
At last, here you have some more numbers, to see the big picture better: 1 million iPhone 3Gs sold in the first 72 hours, with the iPhone being currently on sale in 23 countries, with no less than 20 more expected to be added to the list on the 22nd of August, and another 30 by the end of the year! These being said, that 40 million figure doesn't seem so big anymore, don't you think?