Every year, hundreds of people across Swansea have their phones stolen. It’s one of the worst things that can happen. Thankfully, it looks as though the number of phone thefts across the city has hit a five-year low.
Get Phone Repairs has used data obtained from South Wales Police to find out exactly how many phones were stolen in Swansea over the last five years. Delving into the figures, we’ve found that there’s been a huge drop in incidents since 2018.
How many phones were stolen in Swansea in 2022?
It’s official – Swansea phone thefts have reached a five-year low in 2022 as the number of recorded incidents drop.
According to our data, there were a total of 71 phone thefts recorded in Swansea last year, down 69.9% since 2018. In fact, the number of phone thefts has dropped year-on-year since its five-year high in 2018.
The latest 2022 data shows that:
- £25,205 worth of phones were stolen in Swansea.
- On average, 0.2 phones were stolen in Swansea every day.
- 1 in 6,507 people in Swansea had a phone stolen in 2022.
Following a slump in 2020, the number of phone thefts has since dropped even further, with figures now sitting at a five-year low.
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.
71
phone thefts in 2022
69.9%
decrease since 2018
£25,205
worth of phones stolen in 2022
0.15 thefts
per thousand people
What about other Welsh cities?
| City | Thefts | Value | Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cardiff | 234 | £83,070 | 0.49 |
| 2 | Newport | 29 | £10,295 | 0.18 |
| 3 | Swansea | 71 | £25,205 | 0.15 |
| 4 | Wrexham | 1 | £355 | 0.02 |
| 5 | Bangor | 0 | £0 | – |
| 6 | St Asaph | 0 | £0 | – |
| – | St Davids | 3 | £1,065 | 1.88 |
Cardiff was the worst-hit Welsh city with 234 reported phone thefts, accounting for 34.4% of the Welsh total. We ranked the cities proportionally, using the number of thefts per thousand people to see which ones were hit worse.
This time, St Davids came out on top with 1.88 thefts per thousand people, but since the city is so small with just 1,600 residents, we felt it was unfair to include it in our rankings.
As for the lowest phone theft rates, Bangor and St Asaph both saw 0 phone thefts in 2022, with Bangor clinching the title of Safest UK City due to its higher population.
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 Swansea data was obtained directly from South Wales Police.
Phone Theft Value
We calculated the cost of phone thefts in Swansea 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.