Phone theft was pretty common in the US 10 years ago. This article (based on a population of 20 million people) says about 1 million phones were stolen in 2013:
It's much less common now, since all the major brands brick themselves when stolen (though it's starting to be common to either shoulder surf the pin, or to grab an unlocked phone out of people's hands, then rapidly reset 2FA and email passwords).
I agree with the GP comment that it should be possible to make phones theft-proof and also repairable though.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fcc-smartphone-theft-re...
It's much less common now, since all the major brands brick themselves when stolen (though it's starting to be common to either shoulder surf the pin, or to grab an unlocked phone out of people's hands, then rapidly reset 2FA and email passwords).
I agree with the GP comment that it should be possible to make phones theft-proof and also repairable though.