The figures were calculated based on the Metropolitan Police’s data on 70,000 mobile phone thefts in the capital in 2015.

It updated figures published in September 2014 when the iPhone took the took the top four slots of the most targeted smartphones

However, both the manufacturer and model league tables were not based on straightforward frequency of thefts.

Instead, they used a calculation which estimated whether the model had deliberately been targeted by a criminal – for example after being left on a pub table by the owner – or stolen more randomly, such as phones that had been left in a stolen car.

“This ratio gives us a measure of ‘over–stolen’, in other words, the extent to which a particular make and model of phone was stolen more than we would have anticipated given its share of the random thefts,” said the paper.

“The September 2014 paper showed dominance of the top few slots by Apple phones, with four of the top five phones most likely to be stolen made by Apple.

“However the most ‘over-stolen’ mobile phone based on the 2015 Metropolitan Police data is the HTC M8, albeit a relatively uncommon phone, with only 328 total thefts occurring in 2015. It is followed by the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.

“The Samsung Galaxy S6, S5 and Note models are also in the top 10 phones most likely to be stolen.”