Nokia 6230 is #1 stolen phone in UK
Nokia 6230 mobile was the most often stolen, making up 15.4% of thefts, a research team from the Midlands Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Loughborough University has compiled data from 112,093 crimes in London in 2005 that involved mobile phone theft. “It could simply be that the Nokia 6230 was the most commonly sold phone rather than it is more likely to be attractive for thieves or owned by robbery victims,” they said.
The top 10 stolen mobile handset models in 2005:
- Nokia 6230 (15.4%)Â
- Samsung D500 (8.2%)Â
- Motorola Razr (5.4%)Â
- Sony Ericsson K700i (4.0%)Â
- Nokia 3310 (2.8%)Â
- Nokia 6610 (2.3%)Â
- Nokia 6630 (2.3%)Â
- Nokia 7610 (1.9%)Â
- Nokia 6310 (1.8%)Â
- Nokia 6100 (1.8%)
(Another 488 models made up the remaining 54.1%.)
Authors Jen Mailley, Shaun Whitehead and Graham Farrell from the Midlands Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Loughborough University believe it could be an important step towards providing consumers with better information about the risk of phone theft.
“Perhaps charting the theft careers of mobile handsets could be a precursor to an early warning system,” the report said.
“Handset models are rapidly outdated by new models with more technological bells and whistles, so that rapid change is a characteristic of both legal and illegal markets for mobiles.
“One result is that some handsets are undoubtedly stolen upon demand when fences (handlers of stolen goods) make it clear to robbers and thieves that these are the hot models of the moment.”
The authors attached a health warning to their research because it did not take any account of the volume of sales and was based purely on theft statistics.
The academics suggested that if the mobile phone industry co-operated in providing sales statistics it would allow a table to be compiled of the risk attached to each phone model.
The research cleaned up about 10,000 police records to make sure results were not skewed by mis-spelt manufacturers’ names or incorrect model numbers.
It also showed a separate table for thefts in December 2005, showing how the theft rates of various models had changed compared with the year overall.
The Motorola Razr moved up one place to the second most-frequently stole, with 10.5%, and the Samsung D500 fell to third place.
Two new entries to the top 10 in December were Sony Ericsson’s K750i and W800i.
While Nokia dominated the overall annual figures, it held only four of the top 10 spots for the final month of the year.
The manufacturers of mobile stolen in London in 2005:
- Nokia - 55,783 handsets (49%)
- Samsung - 15,524 (13.6%)Â
- Sony Ericsson - 15,090 (13.3%)Â
- Motorola - 12,947 (11.4%)Â
- Others - 14,451 (12.7%)
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