Why HTC announced it? Because HTC is not a profit-making company now. It just sold their engineering department to Google. For Taiwan it is important that HTC keeps existence. It is an important high tech company in Taiwan. From Vive to Exodus, Now HTC must catches every possible chance to back to the glory again.
Internally we don't know what is happening exactly but the first Mobile company announced they are going develop mobile through Blockchain. See sooner or later most of the companies will start using blockchain technology for developing many other resources we are using daily
I think building block chain powered mobile cause high price this will gives a loss for the company it will be very rare but if it is possible it will be very helpful for the development of the block chain world.