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Look out, fanbois: One in two nicked mobes is an iPhone - cops

But at least you're 'young', 'professional' and 'partying'

Half of the phones stolen in London over the summer were iPhones, the capital's cops reported this week.

According to new statistics, phone-related crime, particularly snatching, was up year on year. Between April and September, 28,800 mobes out of 56,680 nicked handsets in London were Apple pocket strokers. That's an average of 314 phone thefts a day or 158 iPhone thefts a day.

Officers also predict a jump in January 2013: 8,078 phones were reported stolen two years ago in December 2010 compared to 9,751 last month. January is usually worse for phone theft than December, added the coppers.

iPhone 4 Queue

Queuing for an iPhone in London, these young fans are more likely to have their new smartmobes stolen

Cracking a few numbers from phone sales in Q4 2012, we estimate that iPhones make up perhaps 17.5 per cent of handsets in the UK: iPhones had a 28 percent share of smartphone sales in Q3 2012 and 62.3 percent of all phones sold in the UK are smartphones, according to Comscore.

Met Police spinners were unavailable to comment on why iPhones are statistically more likely to be targeted than other brands. It could be something to do with an overlap between the iPhone fanboi demographic and those most likely to get mugged. The Met said:

The most common profile for all [robbery] victims however is a young professional likely to be aged between 20 and 30, out and about in the capital at an entertainment spot or other public places.

Reassuringly expensive iPhones are also very attractive to opportunistic thieves. ®

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