Every year, thousands of people across Derry have their phones stolen. It’s one of the worst things that can happen – losing your handset, your personal information, and even your pictures. Unfortunately, it looks as though it’s getting worse…
Get Phone Repairs has used data obtained from the Police Service of Northern Ireland to find out exactly how many phones were stolen in Derry over the last five years. Delving into the figures, we’ve found that 2022 saw a huge leap compared to previous years.
How many phones were stolen in Derry in 2022?
Derry has seen a surge in phone thefts across the city as recorded incidents climbed in 2022.
According to our data, there were a total of 88 phone thefts recorded in Derry last year, up 52% since 2021. In fact, phone theft has been on the rise in the city since 2020, with numbers rapidly increasing over the last year.
The latest 2022 data shows that:
- £31,240 worth of phones were stolen in Derry.
- On average, 0.2 phones were stolen in Derry every day.
- 1 in 945 people in Derry had a phone stolen in 2022.
After a large slump in 2021, the number of phone thefts hasn’t returned to the five-year high we saw in 2019. But with recorded thefts on the rise, it looks as though it’s heading in that direction.
Don’t want to be one of our phone theft victims? Check out our guide to stop thieves from stealing your mobile phone to keep your hands on your handset.
88
phone thefts in 2022
52%
increase since 2021
£31,240
worth of phones stolen in 2022
1.06 thefts
per thousand people
What about other Irish cities?
| City | Thefts | Value | Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belfast | 541 | £192,055 | 1.57 |
| 2 | Newry | 39 | £13,845 | 1.45 |
| 3 | Derry | 88 | £31,240 | 1.06 |
| 4 | Lisburn | 19 | £6,745 | 0.42 |
| 5 | Armagh | 5 | £1,775 | 0.34 |
| 6 | Bangor | 20 | £7,100 | 0.33 |
Belfast fared the worst with 541 reported phone thefts, accounting for 53.9% of the Irish total. We ranked the cities proportionally, using the number of thefts per thousand people to see which ones were hit worse.
Again, Belfast came out on top with 1.57 thefts per thousand people. Newry followed closely behind with a score of 1.45 while Derry rounded out the top 3 with 1.06 thefts per thousand people.
Bangor had the lowest rate of phone theft at just 0.33 thefts per thousand people. The total value of stolen phones across Bangor totalled just £7,100.
Get Phone Repairs founder Ryan Leston said: “We’re seeing a huge rise in mobile phone theft across the UK. Thousands of mobile phones are stolen in cities across the country, most commonly through pickpocketing and table surfing. Police forces all over the country are backing local initiatives to tackle this rising crime, but the best way to avoid being part of our stats is to take preventative measures. Avoid using your mobile in crowded areas and you’ll stand a much better chance of hanging onto it. Thieves are far more likely to target people they know have high-end devices. So, keep your smartphone out of sight.”
What about the rest of the UK?
As you might expect, phone theft is on the rise across the whole country. There were a total of 135,147 phone thefts in the United Kingdom in 2022.
The value of those stolen handsets came to over £47 million.
National figures reached a low point in 2020 with the total number of reported phone thefts reaching just 89,252. However, it’s been on the rise ever since, with numbers increasing by 35.9% last year alone.
Here’s how the individual countries fared:
- England racked up 133,464 phone thefts in 2020.
- Northern Ireland saw a more modest 1,003 phone thefts.
- Wales saw even less – just 680 phone thefts all year.
Note: Police Scotland refused to supply data to our study.
Again, we chose to look closer at the figures, using our PTI to more accurately compare the countries. Even then, England comes out on top with 2.81 thefts per thousand people. Northern Ireland had a PTI of 0.53 while Wales saw just 0.2 phone thefts per thousand people.
For more information, check out our full UK phone theft stats.
Methodology
FOI Requests
All our UK phone theft data was obtained via a series of Freedom of Information requests, submitted to every UK police constabulary. Our Derry data was obtained directly from the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Phone Theft Value
We calculated the cost of phone thefts in Derry by taking the total number of incidents in each year and assuming a minimum of 1 phone was stolen. We multiplied this by the average cost of a mobile phone, which was found to be £355.
Thefts per Thousand People
Populations differ from city to city, so we needed a way to normalise the data for ranking purposes. When ranking various UK cities, we take the total number of phone thefts in a given year, and divide that by the population. We then multiply the figure by 1000 to show how many thefts there were per thousand people.
UK-wide Data
Several UK constabularies refused to provide data. These were: Hampshire Constabulary, Police Scotland, Staffordshire Police, Sussex Police, Thames Valley Police, and Wiltshire Police. Average and per mille figures exclude areas where data was not provided, using an adjusted population to arrive at reliable figures.
Our full UK phone theft data can be found here.