Henkel Product Development Engineer interview questions

First stage: 30 min video chat with HR. The HR I met with was kind and polite. He asked for a short self-introduction, my past experiences, shared future time line about the hiring process, responsibilities of the advertised role, and potential wage.

Got a phone screen call with a recruiter to review my experience and skills. After that, I had a conference call with the Director of HR and the Hiring Manager. Discussed about my skills, some behavioral questions, interview went well. They said they also have internal applicants, and will get back to me soon. After a week, I contacted them, when I got to know we encourage internal applicants to promotions and so will promote them. If they anyways wanted an internal applicant, why would they interview externals then?