Remember HTC? It’s Teasing a New Smartphone

HTC—once a major player in the Android market—is preparing to make a comeback.

The Taiwanese smartphone vendor today took to social media to post an image that teases a new phone. The picture gives us a side view of the mysterious product, along with the date, June 12, when HTC will presumably share more. 

HTC’s Facebook post for Taiwan adds that the company will make an announcement at 8am local time on June 12.“Can’t wait to finally say it,” the post adds. “The new HTC 2024 is coming soon, please lock in htc.com,” suggesting the company may offer preorders soon. 

The news is surprising because HTC sold its Android development team and intellectual property to Google in 2018 under a non-exclusive licensing deal for $1.1 billion. Although HTC planned to continue releasing smartphones, the company has largely pivoted to selling VR headsets, such as the HTC Vive series. 

In 2018 and 2019, the company tried to make a splash in the phone market with the HTC Exodus series; the phones were designed to appeal to cryptocurrency users with their inclusion of a built-in crypto wallet. However, HTC limited the launch to an early access program, and later in only certain markets outside the US.

The company then dropped the crypto angle to release the HTC U23 Pro last year. But it looks like the product has only been sold in European markets for €419.

It’s possible HTC could be releasing a successor product on a wider scale. This comes as an HTC U24 Pro model boasting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip was recently spotted in a Google Play Console database.